The Aging Brain: Keeping

Your Brain Healthy Through

All Stages of Life

A Webinar Session with

John Arden, PhD
and Ruth Buczynski, PhD

The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life
Contents
(Click on the section title to jump to the page)

Bilateralization: The Brains Two Hemispheres and Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Use It or Lose It - The Slowing of Our Dopamine Circuits as We Age . . . . . . . . . 4
White Matter and Myelin - How They Function in Brain Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Affect Symmetry: Right vs. Left Brain Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Cognitive Longevity and Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Improving Cognitive Longevity with Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Telomere Length and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Education as a Protective Factor against Dementia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Exercising the Brain - Crossword Puzzles vs. Chess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Getting Uncomfortable to Build Up Your Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Pattern Recognition and Problem-Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Paying Attention: How Mindfulness and Focus Improve Learning . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Benefits of Keeping the Brain Active in Later Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Why Physical Exercise Is So Important to Your Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
How Exercise Affects Gene Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Keeping the Brain Healthy through Diet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Why Social Connections Are Critical to Brain Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
About the Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of
Life
with John Arden, PhD
and Ruth Buczynski, PhD
Dr. Buczynski: Hello everyone and welcome back.
First of all, thanks for being a Gold subscriber. I just want you to know how much I appreciate that.
Secondly, I think you are going to be very excited about what we are going to talk about today.
But just in case I need to say it, I am Dr. Ruth Buczynski, a licensed psychologist in the State of Connecticut
and the President of the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine.
Today we are going to talk with John Arden. He is the Director of Training for Mental Health for the
Northern California region of Kaiser Permanente.
He is the author of thirteen books, including most recently The Brain Bible: A Plan to Stay Vital, Productive,
and Happy for a Lifetime.
Were going to talk about how your brain is different now than it was twenty years ago.
So, John, welcome back. We have included you in a series before, and it is great to see you again.

Dr. Arden: Its great to be back.

Dr. Buczynski: Thanks. You talk about how your brain changes as you get older, and particularly the
whole aspect of bilateralization.
Maybe we should define what bilateralization means

Bilateralization: The Brains Two Hemispheres and Aging

Dr. Arden: Since the brain has two hemispheres, they operate semi-independently, but they are integrated
through the corpus callosum.
Before we maybe hit the fifties, there is a tendency to
be a little bit asymmetric in terms of the activation.
The bilateralization concept essentially means that the
two hemispheres operate more like one another and
less independently as we age.

The bilateralization concept

essentially means that the two
hemispheres operate more
like one another and less
independently as we age.

Dr. Buczynski: So, John, when you said asymmetric,

do you mean to say we tend to favor one or the other, or that each one of them does something different?
What did you mean by asymmetric before we are about fifty years old?
Dr. Arden: Actually, its both of your last points both hemispheres offer us skills in a couple of different
areas.
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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

As you know, and probably many of the listeners know, the right hemisphere has a tendency to be more
the global thinker the general gist of things and the novelty accumulator and all of that.
The left hemisphere happens to be very involved in
routinization. That is why language is lateralized to the left
side routine details and those sorts of things lateralize to
the left side.
Now, what happens in the brains of people moving into
their fifties and sixties and thereafter is that there is a little
bit more of a balance between the activation of the two
hemispheres.

The right hemisphere has

a tendency to be more
the global thinker and the
left happens to be very
involved in routinization.

I might also add one thing: your brain, as a woman, versus my brain as a man, works better together even
before this bilateralization.

Your brain, as a woman,

versus my brain as a man,
works better together even
before this bilateralization.

In other words, your two hemispheres, before this aging

process, work better together. Your corpus callosum is
thicker than mine; there is better bilateral blood flow
between your two hemispheres. So you have an edge on
me.

There is also this phenomenon called the Yakovlevian torque: my right prefrontal cortex is a little larger
than my left prefrontal cortex and vice versa, in the posterior area.
Now, your two hemispheres look more alike than mine do.
Dr. Buczynski: We should be careful to point out that we are making generalizations about men versus
women.
Dr. Arden: Absolutely.
Dr. Buczynski: Not all womens brains are alike; not all mens brains are alike. But in general this is
howit shakes out.
So you mentioned that neurochemistry changes and neurotransmitters work differently. I would like to
talk about a study that Dilip Jeste did. Lets get into that whole idea. Can you get into this for us?

Use It or Lose It - The Slowing of Our Dopamine Circuits as We Age

Dr. Arden: My understanding of his study and he is from the University of California, San Diego is
that he looked at the brains of older adults I think over three thousand and found that the neurochemistry
seemed to change over time with age.

Specifically he was looking at the activation of these

dopaminergic circuits dopamine circuits.

It is not only the dopamine

circuits that seem to slow
down the whole cornucopia
of various neurotransmitters
seem to slow down.

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

It seems that these slow down it is not only the dopamine circuits that seem to slow down the whole
cornucopia of various neurotransmitters seem to slow down.
In fact, our synapses dont seem to work as well as we age.
But it is a use it or lose it phenomenon, which I think is so exciting, and that is the area you have been
focusing on for quite some time youve been interviewing all these people and talking about all these
wonderful new discoveries around neuroplasticity and neurogenesis.

It is not like Oh
my god, we are just
doomed to fail but
rather, Boy, theres a
lot of cool things we
can do now to keep
our brains alive.

It is not like, Oh my god, we are just doomed to fail, but rather,

Boy, theres a lot of cool things we can do now to keep our brains
alive and quite active. That is what my book The Brain Bible is
all about.
Dr. Buczynski: So what did Yakovlevian study and why is it
relevant?
Dr. Arden: Here is my understanding of his study: he was looking
at the reactivity capacity of older adultsand Im a lot older than
you!

But, in any case, I have a tendency to react much more slowly than I used to

Dr. Buczynski: What exactly did he study how many people and what did he do with them?
Dr. Arden: He looked at three thousand people, older adults;
he was looking at the dopaminergic circuits and using the
functional MRI. He was trying to take a look at how quickly
these older adults reacted using these dopaminergic circuits
to activate their attention I know you want to talk about
attentional capacities.

The most
evolutionarily
advanced part of
the brain seems to
atrophy, in time, unless
we exercise it a lot.

One of the things that relates to aging, or rather happens with

aging, for older adults, is the most evolutionarily advanced
part of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, seems to
atrophy, in time, unless we exercise it a lot and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex certainly has a lot to do
with working memory.
An example of working memory is: you walk into a room and say, God what did I walk in here for? Oh
yes, thats right it was my keys. Working memory is whatever we are working on at one period of time.
Working memory is the last to myelinate in the brain, and its the first to go. It is the most evolutionarily
advanced part of the brain.

We are less impulsive

than we were at
younger ages.

Now, my understanding of his study is that he was looking at the

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex in general, and
the dopaminergic circuits. He was wondering about the reaction
time of younger adults versus older adults, and we seem to slow
down as older adults.

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

On the other hand, heres the positive: we are less impulsive than we were at younger ages. We are a little
slower but perhaps less impulsive.

White Matter and Myelin - How They Function in Brain Health

Dr. Buczynski: Another change that occurs is with white matter and myelin, as you were just saying.
Why is white matter so important?
Dr. Arden: Glial cells which originally were termed glial
because neuroanatomists thought glial was the glue that
held the neurons together glial cells do such incredibly
important things.

Glial cells were

termed glial because
neuroanatomists thought
glial was the glue that held
the neurons together.

In fact Douglas Fields from NIH you might already have

interviewed him wrote The Other Brain, a fantastic book
and easy read. He describes, and certainly other researchers
have noted this as well, how the white matter is critically important for all sorts of very critical cognitive
capacities.
One of those, of course, is the myelin sheath, the oliodendroglial cells that coat the axons.

The health of our

myelin sheaths
is very important
for conductivity
how quickly our
neurons can fire.

The axons that are the part of the neuron send out information so the
coating of the axons is very much like the coating of wires to help with
conductivity.
You dont want demyelization occurring. In its severe form, as with MS,
for example, there is a shorting out of the motor neurons. Demyelization
is bad news.
The health of our myelin sheaths is very important for conductivity
how quickly our neurons can fire.

There are all sorts of things that we can do that might impair our myelin, such as bad diets and not using
our brain as we will soon talk about.

Affect Symmetry: Right vs. Left Brain Activity

Dr. Buczynski: Before we go on, I would like to just mention briefly the whole concept of set points
adjusting the brains set points can help us jumpstart brain health. You talked about that a little bit in your
book; can you describe what you meant?

Dr. Arden: Sure. Another person you probably interviewed, or

would be good to interview is Richard Davidson. Richie Davidson,
from the University of Wisconsin has done a lot of work on the
whole concept of affect symmetry.
He has worked with a variety of different people to take a look at
the ratio of activity between the two hemispheres.

Adjusting the brains

set points can help
us jumpstart brain
health.

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

It turns out that if that ratio of activity is skewed to the right versus the left, the person has the tendency
to be a little bit more negativistic, a little bit more anxious, and a
little bit more depressed.
If they are skewed a little bit to the left, meaning more activity in
the left prefrontal cortex, a person has a tendency to be a little bit
more optimistic.
Davidson has found that the right prefrontal cortex the front side
of the right side of the brain seems to process negative emotion,
while the left front side processes positive emotion.

The front side of the

right side of the brain
seems to process
negative emotion,
while the left front
side processes
positive emotion.

Now, how is that relevant to you and us?

It turns out that people that seem to be more active on the right front side seem to be a little bit more
anxious and depressed.
People that seem to be a little bit more active on the left front side seem to be a little bit more positive and
more optimistic.
Now, how does that translate down to people with anxiety and depression?
We know now that people that are anxious and depressed seem to be skewed to the right front side.

When you say, Okay, I dont

care Im just going to go
ahead and do it, that activates
the left prefrontal side.

Over and over again, we have seen studies where people

with PTSD, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder
and major depression seem to be underactive on the left
prefrontal side and overactive on the right prefrontal
side.
Now, let me make this even more practical.

One way to get these two sides going is when you withdraw and you avoid, then you get even more active
on the right prefrontal side.
On the other hand, when you do things and thats called approach behaviors in technical language you
say, Okay, I dont care Im just going to go ahead and do it, and that activates the left prefrontal side.
Those of us that are therapists know that people who are anxious and depressed have a tendency to avoid
things that make them anxious and they withdraw when they dont feel so good.
Now, what happens? They get more depressed and they get more
anxious.

So we are always compelled to try to get them into activity. In

CBT language, it is behavior activation and there are all sorts of
technical terms for basically saying, Okay just go ahead and do
it.
If you just go ahead and do it and get involved in life, you get your
left prefrontal side going to balance out the ratio.

If you just go ahead

and get involved in
life, you get your
left prefrontal side
going to balance
out the ratio.

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

The set point is the ratio

of activity between the
operations of your left
prefrontal cortex and your
right prefrontal cortex.

So, back to your question about the set point: the set point
is the ratio of activity between the operations of your left
prefrontal cortex your left frontal side, and your right
prefrontal cortex right frontal side.
If they are more balanced, you have a tendency to use your
brain much more effectively.

But if you are skewed too far to the right, its not so good
because you tend to avoid things that make you anxious or you withdraw, and you are plagued by anxiety
and depression.
Dr. Buczynski: That was one of the best explanations I have heard. Thank you.

Cognitive Longevity and Reserve

Lets talk about what we can do as we age, especially for those of us who arent twenty years old. What
can we do to keep our brains healthy?
You laid out several things in your latest book, The Brain Bible, and you talked about the education
factor. You were talking about how learning is important, especially for what you referred to as cognitive
longevity.

Can you explain, first of all, what you mean by cognitive longevity, and then we will take a look at it from
there?
Dr. Arden: Sure. There are a number of terms bantered about among neuroscientists and what I am
compelled to do is pretty much what you are always trying to do: translate this out to the regular consumer.

Cognitive longevity is this:

Is your brain operating in
such a way that you can
think clearly later in life?

Essentially, cognitive longevity is this: Is your brain

operating in such a way that you can think clearly later in
life? Or are you sputtering? Are you kind of barely making
it through?
Sure, you could live long but we dont want dementia in
our later years.

We want a bright, engaged, thinking nimble brain later in life and that is essentially the whole concept
of cognitive longevity cognitive meaning thinking clearly later in life.
Now, there is another whole factor bantered about and is
referred to as cognitive reserve.

Cognitive reserve means how much capacity or software

you have to help withstand any neurological insults that you
might have later on.

Cognitive reserve
means how much
capacity or software you
have to help withstand
any neurological insults
that you might have
later on.

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

We know that people that are more highly educated getting back to your question seem to have a better
buffer for these neurological insults, including dementia processes that can happen later.
So, heres the bottom line its about having more that you can lose without looking like you have lost
much.
In other words, if you have more adaptive
patterns built up in your brain cognitive reserve
then you can withstand any insults and still
navigate through the world fairly well, despite
the fact that you might already have some of
the dementia processes going on such as the
plaques and tangles with Alzheimers.

If you have more adaptive patterns

built up in your brain cognitive
reserve then you can withstand
any insults and still navigate
through the world fairly well.

Dr. Buczynski: There was a study in London that looked at this whole idea of cognitive longevity. Can
we talk about that?

Improving Cognitive Longevity with Education

Dr. Arden: Sure. That was a fairly large study that took a look at British civil service workers, and what
they wanted to do was measure the difference between socioeconomic status and education.

Certainly, a lot of us are concerned about socioeconomic status and poverty, but where you are on that
socioeconomic ladder might have something to do with
your overall health. Socioeconomic factors can affect your
Where you are on that
access to health services etc. and they wanted to measure
that against how much education a person has.
socioeconomic ladder

might have something to

do with your overall health.

Now, what they found, interestingly, was that education

seemed to be a more powerful factor than socioeconomic
status.

Now, of course, if you are way down there in a terribly impoverished level and you are barely scraping out
an existence, that is a different thing but remember, these are civil service workers who have pensions
after they retire, so they are not impoverished people, but they may not be real rich.
They found that your income level, once you get up to at least
middle class, has less to do with your cognitive longevity than your
education does.
In other words, you can be a relatively modest-income retired
professor and have better cognitive longevity than the CEO of
Apple or Google meaning you have a lot of money.

Education seemed
to be a more
powerful factor than
socioeconomic
status.

It seems that education is a more robust measure of your cognitive

longevity.
Dr. Buczynski: When they did this study, were they looking at telomeres?
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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

10

Dr. Arden: Exactly.

Dr. Buczynski: Lets explain what telomeres are and why that matters for aging.

Telomere Length and Education

Dr. Arden: Telomeres are these caps on the ends of the chromosomes; for example, we have these little
caps that cover the ends of shoelaces so that they dont fray.
In the same way, these telomeres are the caps on the ends of the
chromosomes. It turns out that if your telomeres shrink, as they do with
aging, then you have this aging process.
But it is not like you are stuck with your chronological age; there are a
number of things you can do to either slow down the reduction in the
size of your telomeres or speed up the loss of the length of your telomeres.

Shorter
telomeres
means advanced
aging.

So, bottom line is shorter telomeres means advanced aging.

Education seemed
to help protect the
telomeres much
better than wealth.

What they found in this study was that education seemed to help
protect the telomeres much better than wealth
In other words, the health of these peoples brains seemed to be
measured very clearly in terms of longevity by taking a look at the
size of the telomeres.

By the way, there are other things that you can do to help slow down
the shrinking of your telomeres and I talk about each one of those five factors in the Brain Bible. I use the
mnemonic SEEDS to name the factors that help protect your telomeres from shrinking.

Education as a Protective Factor against Dementia

Dr. Buczynski: Have they looked at this concept of cognitive longevity and reserve and the whole idea
of education with respect to who gets Alzheimers disease or who gets dementia?
Dr. Arden: Exactly, and in fact it is not just in this study, but worldwide. It has been the case during the
last thirty years, that education has been clearly a good measure of who gets dementia symptoms earlier
meaning not only Alzheimers but other dementias.

The more education you have is important and I dont

mean fancy degrees and all that, but the more you are doing
like you are always interviewing different people and you
have to be nimble and ask these questions, and you have to
read up on whatever subject area it is. You are constantly
building this cognitive reserve.

Education seems to be
one of those protective
factors for the longevity
of your brains capacity to
think nimbly as you age.

Education seems to be one of those protective factors for the longevity of your brains capacity to think
nimbly as you age.
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11

You probably have talked to other people about the so-called nun study
Dr. Buczynski: Go ahead and talk about that.
Dr. Arden: Okay. I think it is really fascinating and I am just going to quickly summarize it.
But in Minnesota there was a group of nuns, and they were really fascinating people because they werent
just cloistered off and sitting and praying and all that, but rather they were really involved in the community.
They had very engaging political discussions at night; many of them had high-level graduate degrees and
were involved in teaching out in the community.

The nuns had more

connections and more
robust, cognitive
reserve brain reserve
than other people.

There was this one nun that seemed to be the star of the bunch.
Sister Mary, I believe her name was, seemed to be really engaged.
She was involved in so many different things and was always
having these robust political discussions with people. She lived
to a ripe old age into her late nineties or maybe a hundred and
one Ive forgotten the age when she died.

Of course all the nuns willed their brains to science. Neuroscientists

took a look at their brains and found that they had certainly more connections and more robust, cognitive
reserve brain reserve than other people.

Sister Mary, for example and this is the really striking part actually had an advanced dementia process
going on in her brain, meaning plaques and tangles, which are the symptoms of Alzheimers but she
didnt look like it from a behavioral point of view.
In other words, when people looked at her, people didnt
think, God, do you have dementia going on, Mary? Whats
going on? You seem to forget things. She didnt look like
that at all. She was really bright and intact.
So, as I was saying earlier, the more you can lose without
looking like you lost much really has a pretty graphic
illustration in Sister Marys life.

The more you can lose

without looking like you
lost much really has a
pretty graphic illustration
in Sister Marys life.

She didnt look like she had lost much, but she did in fact.
But she had so many more connections because of her robust intellectual life.

Exercising the Brain Crossword Puzzles vs. Chess

Dr. Buczynski: You said something about that in your book when you talked about a popular belief that
doing crossword puzzles is the best way to keep your brain engaged.

You said that didnt seem true for you you had some ideas about what we needed to be thinking about in
order to keep the brain growing and learning.

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12

Dr. Arden: The answer to almost everything I am saying refers to other peoples studies I read a lot,
too, like you.

I see a lot of
people doing
crossword
puzzles and they
are a good thing.

There is an institute outside Stockholm called the Karolinska Institute,

and a neuroscientist there has done some pretty interesting research on
longevity, as has Ian Robertson at Trinity College in Dublin.
It turns out that crossword puzzles are a good thing I am not saying
that they are a bad thing; in fact my wife would be mad at me if I said
they were a bad thing, because she loves crossword puzzles, and I see a
lot of people doing crossword puzzles and they are a good thing.

However, what you are doing is you are exercising one area:
word-finding skills. Good thing!
You are exercising that particular area. It is as if you are only
concerned with your biceps and you are saying, Im going to
exercise and the only thing Im going to exercise are my biceps.
Dont bother me about all this other cardiovascular stuff and/or
running Im just going to exercise my biceps.

When you are using

more of your brain, as
is the case when you
are playing chess,
you are looking for
other details.

Thats good for your biceps or good for your word-finding

skills.

Now, what other researchers are suggesting is that when you are using more of your brain, as is the case
when you are playing chess, you are looking for other details not only the detail of, My god, if I move
this pawn here, its going to change what is going on between these two pawns, but rather it changes the
whole configuration of the board.

Chess seems to
exercise more
of your brain.

It turns out that in terms of games, chess seems to have a more robust,
positive effect.
We are really not talking about what is good and what is bad crossword
puzzles are good!

But chess seems to exercise more of your brain. Now you are looking at the entirety of the board, and then
you are making detailed moves that change the entirety of the board, the configuration.
Dr. Buczynski: Thanks. So we need to stay with something difficult that exercises a wide range of our
brain.
Dr. Arden: Exactly. In fact, if I can, let me tell you another story that relates to exercising the brain.

Getting Uncomfortable to Build Up Your Brain

Before my father died, he loved Impressionist painting, and he would go to Paris every year for a month
and he could do that because he was a retired judge.
He would spend a week in Le Louvre, and of course he would go to the Orsay (Museum) because he loved
Impressionist painting. This is where all the Impressionist paintings are shown.
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13

But for the last eight years of his life, he would go to the Picasso Museum every time he went to Paris.
I went there with him a couple of times and I asked, Dad, I dont understand; you keep going to the
Picasso Museum. Here we are at the Picasso Museum and I thought you didnt like Picasso. And he
said, I dont. And I said, I dont understand. Why do you go? He said, Because its interesting.
Now, let me tell you about what happens when he would go to the Picasso Museum.
The Picasso Museum is laid out, like many museums, around an
artist in a chronological way. You start out with his Blue Period.
Now, Picasso looked like an Impressionist painter in his Blue Period
you can see what he is painting its a nice sort of pastel.
Then he starts hanging around with this artist,, Braque, and they
start breaking everything up.

You need to be a
little anxious and a
little uncomfortable
to create
neuroplasticity.

My Dad is standing in front of these paintings and he is saying, What the heck happened to this guy?
But he kept standing there, trying to figure it out.
That is what stimulates cognitive reserve when you stand in front of something that partly disturbs you
but you are still trying to figure it out.

You need to be a little anxious and a little uncomfortable to create neuroplasticity. It is not like, Oh, I
think Im going to meditate and everythings going to be all fine in my life

Traveling is a great
way to boost cognitive
reserve because you
have to adapt and
figure out what is new.

You have to get yourself out of your comfort zone to create

neuroplasticity.
That is what older adults need to do to go traveling, for example.
Traveling is a great way to boost cognitive reserve because you
have to adapt and figure out what is new, How do get here?
and all that.

If you go to a country that is so dissimilar from ours, then there

is a little bit more robust adaptation that is occurring. And you are uncomfortable, and you are stressed a
little bit that is a good thing. You are out of your comfort zone.
You are a little disturbed by it but you are building new connections. You are going, God, I dont quite
understand this, the way these people live here but let me see if I can understand it.
Instead of going to Venice every year nice place and thats cool, but if that is all you do for thirty years,
you are not learning anything new...relatively speaking.

Pattern Recognition and Problem-Solving

Dr. Buczynski: There was something else you said in your book that I wanted to ask you about. You
talked about pattern recognition as being more important than problem-solving.
Dr. Arden: I hope I didnt say more important than problem-solving but it seems that pattern recognition
tends to be something that we retain a little bit better as we age. So, what is pattern recognition?
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Pattern recognition is more like, Ive seen this before. Oh, yes this is what happens when that happens.

Pattern recognition is
more like, Ive seen
this before. Oh yes
this is what happens
when that happens.

Village elders, for example, or grandparents are often thought to

be great sources of knowledge about the community, and we go to
them for their wisdom.
Pattern recognition you could say is a source of wisdom Oh,
yes, Ive seen this one before. Dont get all worked up about it
everythings going to be okay because Ive had that happen to me
many times before. We see those patterns.

By the way, the left side of the brain is a little more adept at seeing patterns because of the details and
configurations. By about ten years old, we start losing more cells
in the right side of the brain than in the left side of the brain.
In the fifties, we are starting to lose a little bit in the right and then
by the sixties it is a bell curve of course we are going to be
losing a little bit more in the left.
We are retaining more details, we a little bit more set in our ways,
and we are a little bit less interested in novelty.

By about ten years

old, we start losing
more cells in the
right side of the brain
than in the left side.

It doesnt mean you are going to have to go that way you can push the novelty by getting out of your
comfort zone and exploring novel experiences.

Paying Attention: How Mindfulness and Focus Improve Learning

Dr. Buczynski: Lets talk about paying attention. You have said that paying attention is a big factor when
it comes to learning.
Why do our attention skills deteriorate as we age, and how can we continually improve our ability to pay
attention as we age?

The dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex
is the most
evolutionarily evolved
part of the brain.

Dr. Arden: Remember earlier, we were talking about the front

part of the brain. There are different parts of the prefrontal cortex,
one of those being what is called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
That is the most evolutionarily evolved part of the brain, and the
last part of the brain to mature roughly into the twenties but it
is the first part to go if we dont exercise it on a regular basis.

Working memory is holding things in your mind while you are navigating through and remembering, for
example, I walked into this room was it my keys I was looking for?
And that has to do with staying in the present.

There was a wonderful title of a book that I love to recall with people by Richard Alpert who later became
Ram Dass, and it was called Be Here Now. What a wonderful title.

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He is always talking about mindfulness and being here now

for good reason how you can be in the place you are in and be
focused meaning you are exercising your working memory,
and with regard to mindfulness, it is in a nonjudgmental way.
You are now exercising this part of the brain I was just talking
about the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

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He is always talking
about mindfulness and
being here for now
for good reason.

Why is that so important?

There is a feedback loop

between the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex and
your hippocampus.

Because it turns out, to code in memory, the dorsolateral

prefrontal cortex communicates with this area called the
hippocampus that lays down explicit memories.

So there is a feedback loop between the dorsolateral prefrontal

cortex and your hippocampus and the hippocampus, again, is
that part that lays down explicit memories, which means Oh,
yes, I remember; I was talking to Ruth in early January 2014 that is an episodic memory.
So my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is communicating with my hippocampus only if I can stay present
long enough to keep on remembering whatever the details are.

Attention is the gateway to memory and is the pithy one-sentence

answer to your question earlier. Attention: you cant remember a
thing unless you are there when it is happening, so to speak.

Attention is the
gateway to memory.

And how do you get there when its happening?

You exercise your ability to be focused in the here and now and be here now. And that is why all this
mindfulness stuff is so important.

The Benefits of Keeping the Brain Active in Later Years

Dr. Buczynski: I would like to talk about a study that came out of the New England Journal of Medicine.
They found that exercising our brains can have a significant impact.
Can we talk about that?

They were exercising

their brain they
werent just sitting
home and watching TV.

Dr. Arden: We were talking earlier about cognitive reserve,

and it turns out that in many ways - this particular study that
was described in the New England Journal of Medicine took a
look at a large number I forgot how many adults they were
looking at to see if they had cognitive activity occurring in
their life.

They measured these people into their late seventies, in terms of their description of whether or not they
had cognitive activities going on in other words, were they doing things like going to a bridge club, or
were they going to a book club and discussing the book afterwards. These are cognitive activities.
In other words, they were exercising their brain they werent just sitting home and watching TV.
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They wanted to calculate how many cognitive activities these

older adults were doing and then their propensity to develop
dementia later on.
It turns out that the greater number of cognitive activities a person
in their later years engaged in was a protective factor. That is the
second E of SEEDS so, again, that takes us back to the cognitive
reserve idea.

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The greater number

of cognitive activities
a person in their later
years engaged in was
a protective factor.

Dr. Buczynski: Lets make sure to review that SEEDS.

Why Physical Exercise Is So Important to Your Brain

Dr. Arden: The first E or you can make it the second E if you want is Exercise. Exercise is such an
amazingly powerful and critical factor.

Up until about
eleven thousand
years ago, we were
all hunter-gatherers
and we moved about
ten miles a day.

Lets put it in perspective. As humans, we spend the majority of our

evolutionary history as hunter-gatherers.
Up until about eleven thousand years ago, we were all huntergatherers and we moved about ten miles a day.
Who moves ten miles a day now? I mean, we sit around in these
chairs, we have conversations about the brain or whatever; we talk
on the phone we dont move ten miles a day.

We didnt even have a word called exercise until relatively recently because we moved a whole lot, even
after the advent of agriculture.
We have the same bodies, the same brains that we used to have. It is
not like evolution happens that quickly.
So exercise, as we are now describing vigorous aerobic movement
meaning does your heart pump and do you sweat is absolutely
critical for the health of your brain.

Exercise is
absolutely critical
for the health of
your brain.

Exercise is more powerful probably than any one of the other five factors.

An example of a really
faulty hippocampus
is what happens in
Alzheimers disease.

And what is so amazing about it is that it not only helps protect the
brain, but it is probably the only thing that can create neurogenesis
and neurogenesis means the birth of new neurons.
And the birth of new neurons where?

Remember we were talking earlier about this area called the

hippocampus, which is Greek for seahorse. It is deep within both
temporal lobes on the sides of our brains. The hippocampus lays down new memories.
An example of a really faulty hippocampus is what happens with Alzheimers disease you can lose up
to forty percent of your hippocampus if you have Alzheimers disease.
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Neurogenesis is the
birth of new cells in
the hippocampus.

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Neurogenesis is the birth of new cells in the hippocampus, as

stimulated by aerobic exercise and the release of a neurotrophic
factor called brain-derived neurotrophic factor many people just
call it miracle-gro because it is easier to remember.

If you engage in aerobic exercise, lets say thirty minutes a dayand

you get your heart pumping, then you can release this miracle-gro that can result in neurogenesis, meaning
new neurons in your hippocampus.
Instead of losing cells, you can grow new cells.
Dr. Buczynski: So who studied and tested this?
Dr. Arden: A woman named van Praag and she was working with
Fred Gage at one point at the Salk Institute in San Diego.
Dr. Buczynski: what did they do to study this?

If you engage in
aerobic exercise
then you can
release this miraclegro that can result
in neurogenesis.

Dr. Arden: To begin with, Fred Gage did some studies with rats
he is still doing a lot of research with rats. He found that volitional exercise, meaning you decide that you
are going to do it, and with rats you give them something stimulating to do, and they will do it because it
is stimulating to do.

Exercise throughout
your life is a good
protective thing to
do for your capacity
to remember.

Volitional exercise is when you decide to exercise and it seems to

stimulate the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, miraclegro.
Now, van Praag and a whole bunch of other people Elizabeth
Gould at Princeton and others throughout the world have taken a
look at what happens with humans.

Its not just rats with new cells in the hippocampus, but also humans and we see this by taking a look at
the size of the hippocampus after periods of aerobic exercise through an fMRI
It turns out that exercise throughout your life and certainly later in life is a good protective thing to do
for your capacity to remember.
Now, remember we were talking about the hippocampus as the place you lose a lot of cells if you have
got Alzheimers that is the last place you want to be losing a whole lot because you are not going to
remember much.
So van Praag and a whole bunch of other people have done a
lot of research on what older adults do, checking out the size of
the hippocampus and it turns out: a larger hippocampus with
aerobic exercise.

Now, Id like to mention that if you follow it up with cognitive

exercise, now you have a real nice combination.

Id like to mention that

if you follow it up with
cognitive exercise,
now you have a real
nice combination.

You could say, Why arent jocks smart, then? They exercise. Im not saying jocks arent smart but
some are, some arent.
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But those that follow up their aerobic exercise by cognitive exercise meaning they go exercise are.
For example, after this interview I am going to go hiking at the ocean with my brother and my very close
friend these are guys, by the way, that bicycle literally across the country, and we are going to be going
up and down these cliffs on the Sonoma Coast. Well get some aerobic exercise.
Afterwards, I am hoping to do some cognitive exercise, meaning I will come home and read I will get
the aerobic exercise followed up by the cognitive exercise.

How Exercise Affects Gene Expression

Dr. Buczynski: Is there a connection between aerobic exercise and gene expression?
Dr. Arden: Yes. I read a study by a young neuroscientist from the University of Lund in Sweden, or Lund
University in Sweden, that found that the effect on fat cells is pretty significant.

You have an effect

on the genes
that make you
more inclined to
develop diabetes.

In other words, we all have fat cells, and the way our fat cells operate
is a pretty big factor in terms of who later gets metabolic syndrome
and diabetes.
It turns out that exercise turns off those processes that would lead us
towards developing better metabolic syndrome, which is the gateway
to diabetes 2.

So here you have an effect on the genes that make you more inclined
to develop this process leading to diabetes.
By the way, diabetes 2 is a major danger zone. We dont want to be getting into diabetes 2 because if you
want dementia, you will get it much quicker if you have diabetes 2. Many neurologists are now calling
Alzheimers diabetes 3.
So in my system, the Kaiser Permanente, which is all about integrative
health, we are really concerned about this major time bomb that is
going to explode with all these baby boomers.

Many neurologists
are now calling
Alzheimers
diabetes 3.

They are getting up into their later years, they havent been moving
much, their diets are really bad, and now they have diabetes and they
are going to get dementia so much sooner than other people.

You can turn

genes on and off
by what you do.

So making this gene expression factor more practical, epigenetic process

is a good way to protect your brain it is really wonderful and probably
one of the most exciting in science now.

I mean, it is not like you have your genes and that is all there is to it; you
can turn genes on and off by what you do.

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Keeping the Brain Healthy through Diet

Dr. Buczynski: We are almost out of time, but I want to briefly talk to you about diet. What do we need
to know about diet and keeping our brains healthy?
Dr. Arden: There are a couple of things that I think are fundamental. Let me recall back to an interesting
experience I had in 1975.
I was this young guy who was a graduate student teacher at Northern Arizona University, and I taught a
section of undergraduates in educational psychology.
My boss was a marine, and he came out and gave this lecture
to these hundred and fifty people I just had a small section of
them and he said, We know that kids who eat breakfast do
better in school than kids who dont eat breakfast, because of
the last twenty years of research.
I was involved in the organic movement, doing yoga and
everything like that, so I was really interested: Whats he
talking about? I wonder what that has to do with the brain.
Since then almost forty years later I have been really curious
about that process.

Eating breakfast is
absolutely fundamental
for the development
of the cornucopia of
neurochemistry in our
brain.

So, what is breakfast, but breaking a fast?

That is the longest period of time you go without eating eating breakfast is absolutely fundamental for
the development of the cornucopia of neurochemistry in our brain. It helps us keep focused, positive, and
energetic.
So what is that about?
When we eat, there are various amino acids that we consume in our diet, and we need to get the correct
balance of amino acids. Lets say, for example, if we want serotonin, we need to eat enough food that has
tryptophan in it.
All the neurotransmitters have precursor amino acids.
But your diet is all messed up if you have a chocolate croissant and a triple latte at the local McBucks
coffee place that is not a breakfast. It is basically just a bunch
of filler simple carbohydrates that are actually destructive to the
Simple carbohydrates
brain.

create inflammation,
and inflammation is
our enemy.

We know that simple carbohydrates create inflammation, and

inflammation is our enemy. We dont want inflammation in our
brain, especially as we age.

So simple carbohydrates, especially sugars, create more inflammation and also what many people are
calling advanced glycation end products or AGEs.
You dont have to remember that, but basically it is the development of this process whereby the cells get
stiff and rigid and now cant make adaptive changes.
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Now, that is not so good for the brain because the neurons need to be
soft and pliable, able to make new connections for neuroplasticity.
If you eat too many simple carbohydrates, cells cant make all those
adaptive changes. Thats the same as bad fat consumption if you eat
transfatty acids.

If you eat too

many simple
carbohydrates, cells
cant make all those
adaptive changes.

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Neurons need to
be soft and pliable,
able to make new
connections for
neuroplasticity.

We are really big on eating a

lot of fried foods right now
in fact we are eating more fried foods than we even know because
oftentimes it is not just fried foods but it is even crackers and other
things that have this substance that acts like saturated fat in the brain
and doing not-so-good things which means, again, making the
neurons not be able to communicate with one another as well.

As a result, what we are having is less of an ability to make new connections.

Why Social Connections Are Critical to Brain Health

Dr. Buczynski: I would like to go into the social factor and one of the things you have said is that in
order for us to keep our brains healthy, it is important for us to stay as social creatures.

Why is avoiding loneliness so important?

Dr. Arden: I always love to revert back to this larger picture of
our species and our species really evolved because of our social
connectivity.
We stayed alive as a species because we are able to work together to
adapt to changing circumstances.

Loneliness late in
life seems to shrink
the telomeres.

We stayed alive as
a species because
we are able to
work together.

As a result of our adaptive pattern, we developed all these networks

in our brain to really read one another.
We look at one another, and if you make a frown, I can feel what that
might mean without even thinking about it I feel what that is like
because of all these social brain networks.

Now, we were talking earlier about telomeres these caps on the ends of the chromosomes and it turns
out that loneliness late in life seems to shrink the telomeres.
You might think thats bizarre! How does loneliness result in
these shrunken telomeres?

The social brain networks are like adaptive elements of ourselves

that make us thrive in the world. I mean, we need to be nourished
in a social sort of way.

The social brain

networks are like
adaptive elements of
ourselves that make
us thrive in the world.

We know that healthy relationships are very good at keeping us

much healthier; we know that the immune system goes flat without good social relationships.
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So there is a whole spectrum of different types of immune functions measured in a whole area called
psychoneuroimmunology that are pretty distinct.

People that are lonely

are more depressed
and more anxious.

You get colds less, you are less susceptible to whatever opportunistic
virus might come around; we know that people that are lonely are
more depressed and more anxious.
So these social brain networks help us thrive in the world.

Dr. Buczynski: Thats fascinating. Thats really important for people to know and I think it is one of the
areas people dont know so much because we focus a lot on staying cognitively and physically active and
eating right, but we dont focus as much on avoiding loneliness.
Dr. Buczynski: Yes. I agree. John, thank you so much.
I appreciate your time; you do a great job of explaining
things, of breaking it down and making it accessible
and easy for anyone to understand, and I think that is an
important gift. So thanks very much.
Dr. Arden: Thank you. It is a very big honor for me to talk
to you.

We focus a lot on staying

cognitively and physically
active and eating right, but
we dont focus as much
on avoiding loneliness.

Dr. Buczynski: Thanks.

Dr. Arden: Take care.

Dr. Buczynski: And you too.

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The Aging Brain: Keeping Your Brain Healthy Through All Stages of Life

About The Speaker:

John Arden, PhD, has over 35 years of experience providing
psychological services and directing mental health programs. Since
1999 he has served as the Director of Training for Mental Health for
the Northern California Region in a world renowned HMO.
Dr. Ardens most recent book, The Brain Bible is based on recent
developments in neuroscience and health psychology. It is a selfhelp book which offers the general public down to earth advice based
on new developments in neuroscience.

Featured Book by Speaker: John Arden, PhD

The Brain Bible: How to Stay

Vital, Productive, and Happy for
a Lifetime

Click HERE
to Purchase Now!

Find out more about this and related programs at:

www.nicabm.com
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