New ideas on studying

Interesting NY Times article by Benedict Carey titled "Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits" published on Sept. 6, 2010.  Here are a few excerpts:

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.

...

That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.

Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring a property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.

The Brain that Changes Itself - Norman Doidge (2007)

I found The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge up in Whitefish, Montana, and was surprised that I had somehow missed it in the past.  I take my usual exception to the wording of the title - brains don't change themselves - rather people can guide their own brain re-wiring.  This book is a great round-up of the current knowledge around neuro-plasticity - the ability to essentially regain or enhance ones mental capabilities (re-wiring one's brain), whether in response to injury or through conscious efforts.

The book opens with a couple of interesting observations, which I think point out the potential danger of metaphors.  Doidge traces the idea that the brain cannot change to three causes - lack of recovery in many brain-injured patients, lack of direct visibility of brain changes, and "the idea - dating back to the beginnings of modern science - that the brain is like a glorious machine.  And while machines do many extraordinary things, they don't change and grow." (p. xviii).

The book traces findings of many scientists who are studying the possibilities of brain regeneration.  For a long time the theory of localization - that each area of the brain had its own task and couldn't really change - held sway, but the evidence seems pretty overwhelming at this point that indeed areas of the brain can re-wire.  Many of the findings seem to indicate that it takes dedicated effort, and sometimes deliberate constraints, to force the person to find ways to use weakened parts of the body rather than relying on the still-functioning areas (for example, after a stroke when one side of the body may be partially paralyzed, one must find ways to exercise the weak side).  Many of the personal stories here are quite inspiring, showing results thought to be impossible in the past.

For most brain functions, the rule appears to be "use it or lose it" - i.e. one must keep exercising the functions of the brain or else the areas will atrophy.  This applies both to body movements and to mental capability - it appears that both physical and mental exercise are critical to maintaining a sharp mind and brain. 

While much of the focus of the book is on recovery from disability, there is some coverage of tools that may be useful in sharpening the performance of 'normal' folks (one example is the software of Posit Science).  I think there is still so much we don't understand about our own capabilities!

Your Brain on Exercise

Interesting blog post Your Brain on Exercise by Gretchen Reynolds posted July 7, 2010, on recent studies about the impact of exercise on neurogenesis.  An excerpt:

Your brain, you will be pleased to learn, is packed with adult stem cells, which, given the right impetus, divide and differentiate into either additional stem cells or baby neurons. As we age, these stem cells tend to become less responsive. They don’t divide as readily and can slump into a kind of cellular sleep. It’s BMP that acts as the soporific, says Dr. Jack Kessler, the chairman of neurology at Northwestern and senior author of many of the recent studies. The more active BMP and its various signals are in your brain, the more inactive your stem cells become and the less neurogenesis you undergo. Your brain grows slower, less nimble, older.

But exercise countermands some of the numbing effects of BMP, Dr. Kessler says. In work at his lab, mice given access to running wheels had about 50 percent less BMP-related brain activity within a week. They also showed a notable increase in Noggin, a beautifully named brain protein that acts as a BMP antagonist. The more Noggin in your brain, the less BMP activity exists and the more stem cell divisions and neurogenesis you experience. Mice at Northwestern whose brains were infused directly with large doses of Noggin became, Dr. Kessler says, “little mouse geniuses, if there is such a thing.” They aced the mazes and other tests.

So I guess the lesson here is - use your mind to convince yourself to do some exercise.  It'll do you good in more ways than one!

'Supersizing the Mind' by Andy Clark (2008)

At the MIT Press book store I found the latest book by Andy Clark (author of 'Natural Born Cyborgs'), entitled 'Supersizing the Mind' (2008, Oxford University Press).  This book is less accessible than his earlier work, as it largely seems to be addressing various arguments and criticisms of the 'embodied mind' proposition that he and David Chalmers first raised in a 1998 paper.

The notion of the 'embodied mind' is that our cognitive processes frequently use resources 'outside our heads' to perform the task.  A simple example would be long division, a task which we learn to do on paper.  For most of us, it would be virtually impossible to do this task with large numbers 'in our head'.  This does not mean that the paper or pencil is a 'cognitive agent' but that the cognitive system includes paper and pencil in its sphere.

This book has some interesting extensions of this idea, such as the role of gestures.  Some research finds that active gesturing can aid in certain cognitive tasks.  "The physical act of gesturing, Goldin-Meadow suggests, plans an active (not merely expressive) role in learning, reasoning, and cognitive change by providing an alternative (analog, motoric, visuospatial) representational format." (p. 125).

There is also some intriguing information about the ready ability we exhibit to 'spread the load' of cognition by reconfiguring problems to avoid having to keep all the information available in our mind - rather it can be written down, or simply referenced in the real world rather than having to store a complete model 'in our heads'. Clark's conclusion is that "the appeal to embodiment, if this is correct, signals not a radical shift as much as a natural progression in the maturing of the sciences of the mind." (p. 219).

Mind, Language and Society - John Searle (1998)

Philosopher John Searle attempts to cover most of his work in the short book Mind, Language and Society from 1998, and it's a fairly straightforward read.  I don't claim to know exactly how Searle's approaches are regarded generally, but I have to say I found most of his ideas to be well-grounded.  For the blog I'm most interested in what he had to say about the mind, and there were a few things here that I thought were of interest.

He posits that there is indeed a 'real world' and that we have what he calls 'direct perceptual access' to that world.  I would agree that we have perceptual access, but I think it is surely limited and subject to our own interpretations, which may bias what we think the real world consists of.  Bottom line, however, I agree with his assertion that "realism is not a theory at all but the framework within which it is possible to have theories." (p. 32).

In the second chapter, 'Mind as a Biological Phenomenon' he argues that you can study consciousness scientifically.  He rejects the physical/mental split that we've created, he refuses "to accept the system of categories that makes consciousness out as something nonbiological." (p. 52).  "Consciousness consists of inner, qualitative, subjective states and processes" and "consists of higher-level processes realized in the ... brain."  Bottom line here: "Suppose we start with the fact that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, and go from there." (p. 59).  I'm with him on this!

The latter part of the book explores language, and while I have not read much on linguistics, I found some of his ideas quite interesting.  He breaks statements (illocutionary points) down into five categories, the most interesting, I think, being the declarations.  These types of statements essentially create the situation that they describe, such as a declaration of war or a vow of marriage.  He sees language as a powerful tool for creation of our social reality. 

What we have, in effect, is not just the mind on one side and language on the other, but mind and language enriching each other until, for adult human beings, the mind is linguistically structured. (p. 152).

 Here are some interview snippets with Searle.

Some thoughts from Eric Kandel

Eric R. Kandel won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000, and in 2006 published a memoir entitled In Search of Memory, subtitled The Emergence of a New Science of Mind.  While much of his career was in neuroscience and in particular the basis of memory, he did have a background in psychoanalysis, so he brings an interesting viewpoint on the mind-brain link.  He does believe that mind-directed activity such as psychotherapy can change the brain.

"In fact, if psychotherapeutic changes are maintained over time, it is reasonable to conclude that different forms of psychotherapy lead to different structural changes in the brain, just as other forms of learning do." (p. 370).

Kandel would like to evaluate psychotherapeutic techniques through brain imaging of the resultant changes, to give it a more empirical basis.  He also pulls in this quote from Kay Jamison's An Unquiet Mind:

"But, ineffably, psychotherapy heals. It makes some sense of the confusion, reins in terrifying thoughts and feelings, returns some control and hope and possibility of learning from it all. Pills cannot, do not, ease one back into reality." (p. 372 of In Search of Memory).

I think the point of control is an interesting one.  If one relies only on the neuroscience approach to the brain, this effectively cedes control of brain changes to the expert, whether through use of drugs or more invasive techniques.  With a mind-directed approach, there is the potential for self-control and direction.

More on brain healing, learning

A McClatchy story by Nancy Churnin ran today in the Oregonian entitled "Scientists rethinking the brain" - couldn't find it on their website, but found it on the Taiwan News site.  News of interest concerns a man who was thought to have permanent damage with regard to "his ability to talk to people and stay on task".  He was helped by a set of exercises on attention and reasoning.

Strategic attention: the skill to block out distractions and focus on what's important. Exercises might include taking stock of your environment, identifying what distracts you and eliminating or limiting those things, and creating daily priority lists.

Integrated reasoning: the ability to find the message or theme in what you are watching, reading or doing. Exercises might include making a point of reflecting on the meaning of a book after you've read it or a movie after you've seen it and writing down your interpretation.

Innovation: the vision to identify patterns and come up with new ideas, fresh perspectives and multiple solutions to problems. Exercises might include thinking of multiple solutions to problems as they come up, talking to other people to get a different perspective and taking time to step away from a problem to give yourself an opportunity for creative thoughts.

Hayner says his sessions - he attended for two months and completed take-home exercises - proved invaluable.

"I have been on so many drugs and medications, and they got me nowhere," he says. "Adults with TBIs (traumatic brain injuries) tend to become overwhelmed, and when someone becomes overwhelmed, it spirals into fear and chaos, and we have a tendency to shut down.

"Today as long as I stick to what I was taught here about filtering information and innovative thinking and what's important and what's not important and apply that to my real life, things don't confuse and baffle me ... I can make a decision on the important things that have to be done each day."

Using the mind to heal the brain...

Yoga at elementary school in Portland

Ran across this interesting tidbit in a cover story of the Oregonian today: "Portland's Lent School helps disadvantaged students soar" by Betsy Hammond, on the positive results at a local elementary school.  Yoga is mentioned on the front page, but in the story itself there's just a bit more on it:

But the school also engages students in hands-on science from the earliest grades. And every elementary student gets art lessons, drama or music class and library time with a specialist each week. Some even have regular yoga lessons to help them relax and feel successful. 

I'd be interested in knowing more about the yoga program - how many kids are in it, do they self-select, how often do they go, etc.