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Comment by apsec112 | Hacker News Reader

"Many labs have observed that these critical brain regions increase in activity when people perform difficult tasks, whether the effort is physical or mental. You can therefore help keep these regions thick and healthy through vigorous exercise and bouts of strenuous mental effort."

Woah woah woah there. That doesn't follow at all. Even if you buy the "exercise model" - which can't possibly be tested by observing brain activity over minutes, since improvement would happen over weeks to months - that doesn't imply an ability to ward off old age over decades. In the case of literal muscle exercise, for example, playing pro sports will certainly strengthen your muscles now but likely cause long-term injuries. https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/public-healt...

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> Woah woah woah there. That doesn't follow at all.

And the article acknowledges that it might not, while discussing as yet understudied observations.

In the sentence right before your quote: "We’re still studying this question, but our best answer at the moment is: work hard at something."

While your comment is true (no established causation yet), this reminds me of the climate change debate. For the sake of argument, human carbon production may or may not contribute to global warming. For the sake of argument, global warming may or may not be happening, and may or may not be bad.

But the solution proposed to reduce global warming, "reduce pollution," is good in and of itself. We're pretty sure pollution increases disease and death. It also looks bad and smells bad. How much is too much is debatable, but minimizing it as well as we practically can is a good thing. There are no mainstream proposals, as far as I know, to entirely eliminate pollution (as close as I can come to your equating exercise with professional sports), but dodging climate change has become a way to dodge responsibility for pollution.

Thinking is good. Thinking moderately harder is probably better. Getting up and going to the bathroom is good. Walking to the store is probably better.

If I happen to retain cognitive ability in later years, from exercise and thinking, great. But regardless, I'll do it because it's already good for me in other ways.

Since there seems to be some confusion, I'll restate what you are saying a bit because it's important.

Increasing activity in a brain region doesn't necessarily make it "thick and healthy", no matter how much you do it. This is the "exercise model" and it is a hypothesis (if not still at the conjecture stage, not my field).

I'm sorry, can you clarify your point? What is the problem with the idea that difficult tasks (both mental and physical) help to prevent atrophy in a certain part of the brain?

Because although it sounds like something that would make sense, the science does not actually support that conclusion.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-brain-training-work/

The tl;dr is that brain training makes you better at that one particular task. Whether that carries over to anything else is unknown. It is considered a useful technique only insofar as that it is easy to do, and we don't have a lot of other options to try anyway. But actual, measured benefits are difficult to find.

I am not against it as a concept. But much more research needs to be done to see if it has any actual value beyond the simple joy of doing such things.

The original article actually mentions Sudoku and the simple brain training apps and says that they don't think they're effective because they don't push your brain into difficult territory.

The essay you linked seems to be a non-sequitur. Berrett suggests in the original article that performing a difficult task increases activity in the cingulate cortex, which might help to prevent aging. The essay you linked merely says that neuropsychological training probably doesn't make people generally smarter.

Becoming smarter and preventing aging are two different goals.

Look at the paper linked in the overview that I posted.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

I did look at that paper. Here is a quote from that paper:

> Based on this review, all three approaches to computerized training – classic cognitive training tasks, neuropsychological software, and video games – appear to hold promise for improving cognitive abilities in cognitively normal, community-dwelling older adults who have a higher risk of cognitive decline as they age.

Yes. And note the sample sizes given a sentence further down.

The two best had an n of 12 and 8, respectively.

That's why they said 'appears'. It's suggestive, but the amount of available, good-quality data is surprisingly small.

Those are numbers of studies. It's a meta-analysis.

Then I am apparently mistaken. Thank you for pointing it out.

So you are using a paper of small sample size, which doesn't even contradict the conclusion, as your main evidence to disprove a conclusion you disagree with? That seems like a logical fallacy.

I was arguing neither for nor against it.

My original conclusion wasn't that it didn't work, it was that the amount of actual research done was surprisingly small, and so that we didn't actually know what was being proclaimed as a done deal.

It turns out I was wrong, and that there has been more research than I thought.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-brain-training-work/*

That website just shows that brain-training programs like Lumosity* don't work very well. Thy are too simple and narrow in their focus.

Op's article suggests that there's only "brain exercise" when it's difficult to the point one feels bad or even painful. Very different from "simple joy" as you describe. I'm not saying that there are studies supporting that (I'm not sure), but there's a clear difference we should be aware of before discarding the idea.

That's an idea that sounds good. Sounds like something people might want to be true. So any scientist should be extra careful in checking if observations sufficiently support this idea.

After all, science is just a process mainly for avoiding lying to yourself about reality.

"After all, science is just a process mainly for avoiding lying to yourself about reality."

perfect. thank you!

I agree 100%, but there's otherwise nothing obviously problematic with the idea itself, is there? It's just that we, humans, are flawed and biased?

There's no observational evidence to support activity preventing atrophy.

You're right, but there are some longitudinal randomized studies.

Playing pro-sports is not at all what they are talking about. Pro-sports puts demands on the body way beyond what a good exercise routine would be for a typical person.

you seem to be of the opinion that because concussions are bad, the idea of exercise aiding aging or other mental benefit isnt supported? that's absurd. there's significant evidence of the benefits of physical activity to mental health. which is pretty obvious considering that muscle contraction is entirely driven by the CNS.

here is some study into these various ideas. google your heart out but this was the first i found.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/newsevents/news/newsrecords/2015/Novemb...

Isn't it already sort of scientifically proven that "if you don't use it, you lose it" wrt to the brain? In that case, the validity of the 'exercise model' follows from that, at least for 'maintenance' mode (what the article seems to be arguing for). Now for hypertrophy (actually "becoming smarter"?), the question may still be open...

Playing pro sports may weaken muscles. During a NHL season players loose up to a kilo of muscle mass. That one of the reason why the rate of injuries rises towards the end of season as the players got less muscles that protect against injuries.

Pro-sports is an entirely different level of exercise. The seasons are very long and demanding to the point where players never have enough rest.

Remember that workouts is not when a person gets stronger, but the rest period between. Not getting enough rest is terrible for all sorts of reasons.

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