One of my 21st Birthday presents was a calculator, given to me by my then boyfriend. Pretty exciting, huh? Yes, I thought so too at the time. The thing was, calculators were just coming in to regular use and it was actually a big deal having one’s own pocket calculator. Not that it would have fitted into a pocket, as it was the size of a brick.

At the time, some people were expressing concern about their introduction saying it would erode our ability to do maths. In my case as someone who could never do maths it meant I might actually get the answers right from time to time.

Now it is hard to imagine not having a calculator to either do the sums for us or to double check we have the correct answer.

Today, I now hear similar concerns being expressed about the use of other technologies such as the GPS, the “must have” navigation tool in our cars to allow us to get to our required destination. Now that I have to put my reading glasses on to be able to read the street names on the map, maybe that’s not such a bad thing either. Or is it?

Maps have traditionally been used to help us get from our current location to a new point that we weren’t familiar with. This could be finding a particular store in an unfamiliar suburb, or negotiating around different towns when on holiday.

But how many people now have their Tom-Tom® or GPS “on” all the time even when driving familiar routes?

When we are finding our way from point A to point B we can use visual cues such as landmarks, to help orientate ourselves and work out where to go. This is called spatial navigation strategy.
Or we can use our sense of “autopilot” turning left and right in a series of repetitions to get to our destination. This is similar to what we experience when using a GPS.

Researchers from McGill University have been conducting studies using fMRI scans to show that when we use landmarks as cues i.e. our spatial navigation system, we activate our hippocampus, the area of our brain that is involved in memory and navigation, and how we can devise short cuts and new routes.

As we age, our brain appears to look for less effort. Studies have shown that younger brains tend to spontaneously use the spatial approach, while older brains go for the response strategy.

This change may not be good for us. Our hippocampus is one of the first areas to be involved in Alzheimer’s disease where we lose the ability to orientate ourselves in space and also develop memory problems.

More studies now indicate that if we continue to practice using our spatial memory, then we may be able to maintain our hippocampal function as we age. Those who practice spatial strategies maintain a greater amount of grey matter in the hippocampus and perform better on standardised cognitive testing. Associate Prof Veronique Bohbot from McGill University has suggested that we use spatial memory techniques as a means of building cognitive reserve.

So you don’t have to toss your GPS into the bin. However, maybe it is a good idea to turn it off for routine driving routes and use it only “as needed”. Taking those extra couple of minutes to work out your route and using visual cues will keep your brain working better for longer.

(From studies presented by McGill University Montreal, Quebec, at the Annual Society of Neuroscience Meeting 2010.)

I have always admired others who have the ability to speak more than one language fluently. My memories of being taught French and German at school are hazy to say the least.
We were out having dinner with friends recently when it was casually mentioned that a particular friend could speak four languages well. When we commented on how impressed we were, he responded saying. “Well that’s nothing, my wife can speak six!”
They are a truly multilingual family. Born in Switzerland and South Africa, now residing in Australia, they have managed to maintain their verbal fluency by using different languages depending on what is being discussed and whether they think you might understand some of what they are saying! Not surprisingly, their children all have the same ease of slipping into French and German when sitting around the dinner table.

You may be asking, so what?

Well apart from being really useful when travelling overseas and impressing one’s friends, it appears that being bilingual helps to contribute to our cognitive reserve.

Having the ability to speak two languages consistently over the years has been shown in a study to delay the apparent onset of dementia by up to five years.

It’s not that being bilingual prevents Alzheimer’s or dementia. It’s more that having the brain deal with two sets of vocabulary, grammar etc allows it to defer the clinical manifestation of memory loss, confusion, and difficulty with problem solving and planning.

The Canadian study looked at 211 people with probable Alzheimer’s disease over a two-year period. The date of diagnosis and age of onset of cognitive decline was recorded along with information about occupation, education and language history. From this, 102 people were classified as bilingual and 109 as monolingual.
(In Canada, many of the population speak English, French or both.)

The researchers found that those who were bilingual were on average diagnosed with Alzheimer’s around 4.3 years later than those who were monolingual.
There was no difference relating to gender, immigration, cognition or occupational level.

This study supports how our lifestyle plays a very important role in how our brain copes with age related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s.

Perhaps this provides us with a golden opportunity to brush off our dusty language books, sign up to learn a new language at college or on-line and book that next holiday so we can practise our new found skills.

Which one are you going to learn first?

Reference:
Fergus I.M. Craik, Ellen Bialystok, Morris Freedman. Delaying the onset of Alzheimer disease: Bilingualism as a form of cognitive reserve. Neurology, 2010; 75: 1726-1729 DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3181fc2a1c

Stress in the workplace and home has been blamed for much of the prevalence of stress related illness such as heart disease, cancer and mental illness including anxiety and depression. What hasn’t been known is how much stress affects our children and the impact this has on their own physical and mental well being.

The headline in last Saturday’s edition of the West Australian was “Secret Stress Of Our Kids”
This was based on the published results of a survey of nearly 959 WA children aged between 5 and 18 years. The Commissioner of Health Michelle Scott reported that it appears from the research that children on the whole are doing pretty well but there were a couple of clear and consistent areas of concern.
She went on to say that the quality of family life was shown to have the greatest impact on children’s wellbeing, so it was not surprising that issues such as family conflict and alcohol abuse were sources of trauma to them.

The survey results showed:

• 35% reported as having too much stress in their lives
• 60% had been bullied and 44% had bullied someone else.
• 40% said they did not feel safe on public transport in the daytime (79% at night)
• 19% did not feel safe at home.
• 42% felt scared in public places
• 38% said they did not have anyone to talk to and preferred to keep their problems to themselves.

This week I listened to a lecture given by Dr. Anke Van Eekelen at the Telethon Child Health Institute. Dr Anke has been involved with developmental neuroscience research focussing on brain development, adolescent brain function and neuroendocrine regulation of stress and adaptation. Her talk focussed on how our children’s brains mature and how stress in childhood by affecting their brain maturation in late adolescence can affect their ability to cope with life’s stresses as adults. Our brain’s stress circuitry (the HPA) is completed by early adulthood and will stay stable then through out the rest of our lives. Our level of resiliency to deal with life’s stressors depends on how our brain is wired at that time.

Her team have been trying to identify some of the main factors that influence adolescent brain maturation. Their focus has been to evaluate the role of genetic factors, combined with childhood and adolescent experiences.
The data has been collected from around 2900 women and their children who enrolled in the Raine Study, a longitudinal pregnancy cohort that began in 1989.The teenagers are now aged between 16 and 18 years. Data from a second longitudinal study, the Peel Child Health now in its second year is also being included. Her findings are due to be published in the near future.

When we are under prolonged stress our levels of circulating cortisol in our body is increased and this is known to have a damaging effect on our brain. Stress reduces the brains plasticity, or in other words its ability to produce new brain cells, or to maintain or produce new connections between brain cells.

In the developing brain the flight or fight mechanism, is not fully developed until late adolescence. In some instances this is not complete until the age of 25! This therefore provides a final phase of opportunity to influence the final development stage of the brain, which also happens to coincide with the cognitive maturation of the forebrain, the part of our brain concerned with higher-level thinking.

However for teenagers, this time also coincides with puberty, big surges of hormones and and an increased vulnerability to stress.

In her preliminary findings Dr Anke revealed that teenagers levels of stress hormones are influenced by the life stressors their mothers had experienced pregnancy. The type and timing of the stress was shown to be the most important. Maternal stress experiences in early pregnancy whether it is relationships (separation/divorce, marital problems or death of a family member) or financial (job loss, financial problems) were the most significant. In the 17-year-old group those whose mothers had had more stress during pregnancy, had higher resting levels of stress hormones on blood and salivary testing.
In the 18-year-old group tests of blood and salivary hormone levels were taken during and after stressful events. The form of the stress used is known as the Trier Social Stress using the challenge of public speaking and also doing mental maths. The results from this group are currently still being evaluated. What has been found though, is that there is a gender difference in stress hormone levels. The boys had a higher level of the brain stress hormone ACTH, but lower blood cortisol (which is produced by the adrenal glands), whereas the girls had lower ACTH levels but an increased adrenal response with a higher cortisol level. This suggested gender difference in response to stress has also been shown in a study in adults.

Here a study at the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, used fMRI scans to look at the gender differences of stress on adult brains.
The results showed that different areas of the brain were engaged in the stress response depending if it was a woman or a man. Men tended to show an increase in blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for the flight or fight response. Women showed increased blood flow to the limbic areas, which is associated with a more nurturing response and also showed longer lasting changes in blood flow and brain activity. These results imply that gender needs to be taken into consideration when dealing with stress related disorders such as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) along with other genetic and environmental factors.
Dr Anke’s team have been able to obtain neuro imaging by fMRI of sixty 17 year old boys. These scans show that those boys with lower levels of stress hormone activity required less brain activity to complete mental tasks than those with higher levels. This is thought to represent a difference in the maturity of their brains. The less mature requiring greater brain intervention and energy to achieve the same task.

A new study from Brown University published in Neuropsychopharmacology has revealed that healthy adults who suffered abuse or neglect in early childhood will continue to carry higher levels of inflammatory markers such as interleukin-6, which may be linked to a higher risk of anxiety and depression. This was a small pilot study so a larger study is required to see whether this biological abnormality, which appears to be stress induced could be used as a way in the future to either prevent depression in those identified as being at higher risk, or treatment.

Whether we are children or adults, there are a number of strategies we can put in place to help ourselves to cope with life’s stresses and be more resilient:

• We can recognise what we can change and what we can’t. If we are dealing with something we have no control over, we can simply let it go.
• Don’t seek perfection. Perfectionism can be out of sync with reality. It’s not about not trying to do something well, it’s about determining what is a reasonable outcome for a particular task, rather than trying to be the best in everything. This includes not expecting others to be perfect as well.
• Be aware of when we have simply taken on too much. It’s important to recognise when we need to press the “pause” button so we can re-evaluate what is essential, what isn’t and to delegate or dismiss as appropriate.
• Getting enough sleep to allow our brain to rest, recuperate and review all that it has previously learnt and experienced.
• We need to exercise every single day. This has been shown to reduce stress levels and improve our resiliency. Children especially need to be physically active preferably for a minimum of one hour a day.
• Follow a brain healthy diet. Avoid the junk food and include plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit and nuts along with lean protein, fish and eggs.
• Ensure every day has some down time. Make the time to switch off and relax, enjoy going to a movie, soaking in a hot bath or just spending time with friends.

Reference:
Linda L Carpenter, Cyrena E Gawuga, Audrey R Tyrka, Janet K Lee, George M Anderson, Lawrence H Price. Association between Plasma IL-6 Response to Acute Stress and Early-Life Adversity in Healthy Adults. Neuropsychopharmacology, 2010; DOI: 10.1038/npp.2010.159

It’s been one of those days. You overslept and were late for an important meeting at work. Your boss is giving you the evil eye and you are feeling physically sick. The photocopier then spits the dummy and refuses to print out the 150 sheets you need for tomorrow’s presentation. A driver cuts in front of you in the freeway almost causing you to have an accident and you realise you forgot to collect your son from his after school sport training. Your son is cross as he gets into the car, throws his muddy sports gear across the back seat and slams the car door. You react by shouting at him.

Anger is a normal human emotion. We all get angry. We see anger expressed all around us, from screaming toddlers having tantrums in the supermarket, to belligerent teenagers slamming bedroom doors, to news reports of stabbings. When we are angry we say things which can be deliberately hurtful to the intended victim, we may even be physically aggressive.

Anger is a protective emotion. It guards us against attack. It provokes a physiological change in our body getting us ready to fight or flee and is associated with a psychological change in our brain.

When angry, our emotion can be usually easily detected by others: clenched tight muscles, facial flushing, narrow focused attention on the source of anger, raised blood pressure, increased breathing and heart rate. Our testosterone levels increases as does our adrenaline and noradrenaline.

How we react when angry, varies from person to person. We all learn to handle anger differently, depending on culture, socio-economic background, gender and personality. Some people deal with anger better than others. Some people are constantly irritable, hostile, and short tempered with a short fuse. Others are slow boilers, mostly easy going but capable of blowing off like a volcano occasionally.

In order to learn how to handle anger better, we need first to understand our amygdala.

Our amygdala is part of our reptilian brain, the oldest part of our brain developmentally and it is concerned with our emotional regulation. Nestled deep in the brain the two almond-shaped amygdala (one in each hemisphere) react to potential threats. They do this so well that our body reacts and primes itself to respond before the thinking part of the brain, the cortex, can evaluate what the situation actually is and whether any or what response is actually warranted.

Losing your cool at work.

At best this may have a negative impact on the relationship you have with your colleagues. At worst you may find yourself at risk of either losing your job ( unless you are the boss where you might lose an employee) or missing out on a promotion. Women who display anger in the workforce are seen in a particularly negative light. Fair or not, anger in men in the workplace for some reason is more tolerated.

Learning to control your anger is possible and can make a significant difference to your own level of happiness and well-being. Angry people have a much higher incidence of stroke, heart disease and impaired immune function. It’s bad for your health to be angry and it also has a bad effect on your thinking skills and mental performance.

Have you heard the saying that “As emotion goes up, intelligence goes down.” ? Or, as my mother always said. If you argue with an idiot, then you have two idiots. That doesn’t mean only stupid people get angry and argue, but that when you are angry your level of reasoning and logic is greatly reduced. What you may say or how you behave, can be completely irrational and out of character.

Once the amygdala has triggered the alarm, the cortex registers this and if our thinking brain goes along with the experience of anger, several things will occur.

First up the left side of our brain becomes more active and draws us closer to the source of our anger. When we are happy or experiencing positive emotions we expect our thoughts to bring us closer to the stimulus. Conversely when we are sad or afraid we would otherwise seek to get away from what is causing us to feel negative emotions and this involves stimulation of the right hemisphere. Anger is different because it is a negative emotion and yet we are drawn closer to who or what is making us angry, rather than moving away from it.

Anger management.

There are a number of strategies we can adopt to deal with anger:

• Because being angry provokes a focus onto the source of the irritation or anger, the easiest way to defuse the emotion is to remove yourself from the stimulus. Try going for a walk or at least leaving the room before you blow your top.

• By physically moving away or trying to detach yourself emotionally from the situation gives your cortex or thinking brain time to evaluate the situation. Try counting slowly to ten before allowing yourself to say anything!

• Take six deep slow breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Use diaphragmatic breathing: put your hand gently on your tummy and when breathing in or out allow your tummy muscles to go in and out. This helps to alleviate muscular tension and calms you down.

• Journal or write down your thoughts and then tear them up, preferably the following day. Never ever,ever send an email in anger. It might come back to bite you on the bottom.

• Try smiling. It’s really hard to stay angry at someone while smiling at the same time. It helps to lighten the moment.

• If someone is displaying anger at you, remember that that is their framework that they are looking through. You don’t have to share the same frame and buy into it. Is their anger really directed at you? Or are they just voicing their frustration/irritation and you just happen to be the nearest venting post? We don’t know what is going on in someone elses head. It’s their issue and they have to deal with it. The important thing is to not allow yourself to be infected by their negativity (somehow!)

• Give your anger a time-frame. OK, so someone has really gotten under your skin or made you feel really mad at them. How long are you going to allow yourself to experience that anger? By choosing to stay with your anger/hurt pride/wounded feelings etc it impacts your ability to respond and deal with what else is going on in the world. Angry people are not fun to be around. So you’re upset, now get over it.

• None of us are perfect and even with practice there are going to be times when our hot buttons get pressed and we react badly. So don’t beat yourself up if that happens. Afterwards, look at what may have been the trigger and learn from it. Was there a way you could have handled it differently?

• Don’t forget to apologise. It doesn’t matter whether you were in the right or wrong. You are apologising for your behaviour. You may or may not be forgiven for your anger but acknowledging your reaction was perhaps inappropriate or unhelpful can help. As long as you are sincere Saying sorry can go a long way to resolve conflict.

So what do you do to handle anger?

Ref: Neus Herrero, Marien Gadea, Gabriel Rodriguez-Alarcon, Raul Espert, Alicia Salvador. What happens when we get angry? Hormonal, cardiovascular and asymetrical brain responses. Hormones and Behaviour, 2010; 57 (3): 276 DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.12.008

A good friend of mine has been battling with her weight for years. She has been on every diet known to man kind, read all the diet books, cooked all the diet recipes for herself and her family and yet her weight bounces up and down like the veritable yo-yo.

I don’t think her partner has ever dieted in his life. He works hard, plays hard, exercises. He enjoys his food and stays slim and trim.

Unfair?

Perhaps. But now scientists may have discovered why repeated dieting fails.

Most dietary advice indicates that it would be prudent to cut down on known “fattening” foods and increase exercise. And yes this may produce the desired effect until the diet is stopped, old eating patterns return and so does the weight along with a bit extra for good measure.

We also know that comfort eating to deal with stress, accounts for much obesity.

Increased levels of obesity and increased levels of diabetes put us at greater risk of developing dementia as we get older.

In this research, Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute in Boston took two groups of rats. One group as the control just had their regular rodent food. The other group was fed “normal” food for 5 days and alternated with 2 days of “sweet” food, the equivalent of us enjoying a few servings of high fat, high sugar desserts.

The dieting group on their normal diet ate less and avoided stress related situations (What that is in rat terms I don’t actually know!)

When on the high sugar diet they coped better with anxiety provoking situations, but also ate more. Plus those in the diet group when on “normal” food were found a much higher level of a stress neuropeptide CRF x5 that of the control group. This stress hormone returned to normal when the rats went back onto the high sugar diet again.

Aha!

How often have you heard the excuse of people tucking into a huge bowl of ice cream or consuming that family bar of chocolate because they feel stressed?

OK I confess, I’ve done it too.

But maybe we do it not because we actually are stressed. It’s that our brain is telling us we feel stressed (by having a higher level of the stress neuropeptide CRF in our system) because you are showing withdrawals to the high sugar/fat foods that we have intermittently.

In other words, frequent changes to our diet being “good” for a period of time followed by going back to our usual eating patterns works against us big time because of the changes that occur as a result of this, in our brain.

So sadly for my friend until she can lose the diet books and choose to implement a healthy eating plan she will continue with her vicious circle of dieting and overeating. Her continued efforts of deprivation and compensatory binge eating will not only deprive her of continued successful weight management but more importantly make her at risk of heart disease and poorer cognitive function, particularly as she gets older.

The key to deactivating the stress response by our brain is losing the idea of dieting, as that for most of us conjures up deprivation and not being allowed to eat certain foods that we like. And for most of us what we know we “mustn’t have” is instantly more desirable!

By eating a varied diet including all the fabulous brain foods such as fish, fruits, vegetables and nuts we can work towards maintaining a healthy weight, enjoying  mood stability and better thinking.