Brain research - are you losing your sense of direction or losing your mind?

- Fri, 9 Nov 2007

If you've ever worried that you're losing your sense of direction and that maybe that means you're losing you're mind, relax. Scientists think they now understand why our sense of direction deteriorates with age - and its cause is quite different from that behind dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

In a recent study at Wayne State University, reported in Science Daily, researchers tested men and women aged from 18 to 92 about their sense of direction. (Click here for the full story). The test contained a series of interconnected roadways, some leading to dead ends. Along the way were a series of signs and landmarks - some critical to finding the destination, others not. While 90 per cent of all respondents recalled the landmarks, older people found it significantly more difficult to ignore the irrelevant ones and identify the correct directions associated with landmarks. This underscores other recent research which has found that older people are just as alert to what is going on around them, but their brains lose their capacity to filter out the important from the unimportant.

A key factor in how well you filter information is how fit you are, according to another study at Jacobs University in Germany. There, scientists studied individuals aged 61 to 79, and found the brain regions responsible for making decisions and directing specific attention were still strongly activated in those who were physically fit. In individuals not as fit these areas of the brain were much less activated.

Fitness isn't the only way to shore up your memory. Another is brain training. In the same way that physical exercise strengthens the muscles and keeps the body physically flexible and adaptive, brain training strengthens the neural pathways - the channels which are used to convey thoughts, memories, and concentration. The world's leading brain exercises are from HeadStrong Cognitive Fitness. The company  has the support of Professor Elkhonen Goldberg, a globally recognized authority on cognitive fitness, and Professor of Neurology at New York University. To find out more about brain training and how it works, click here.