Her own medicine: Professor Marian Diamond, a leader in mental enrichment research, is also proof that it can work.

In a conference room in University Hall, Professor Michael Thaler’s bioscience class listens intently as he describes research on the genetic manipulation of longevity, his black crew-neck sweater and white goatee lit by the glow of an overhead projector. When he shows a graph upside-down and his students call out, he quips, “Very observant. It’s a brain test,” to laughter all around.

The 80 students seated in tiered rows are not your typical undergraduates, but adults 50 and older enrolled in Berkeley’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). For them, Thaler’s class is a kind of brain fitness center, where a mental workout can literally change the brain’s structure and chemistry. While they jot notes and absorb the distinction between life span and life expectancy, the students’ neurons are sprouting new dendritic branches, synaptic connections are strengthening, and neurochemicals are increasing.

Research over the last 40 years has produced a new vocabulary of the brain, giving us such words as neuroplasticity (the idea that, contrary to previous assumptions, the brain can change in response to stimulation well into old age). Studies have shown that both physical and cognitive exercise have neuroprotective effects that slow or prevent cognitive loss, blasting the myth that mental decline is inevitable.

As baby boomers enter their 60s and as Alzheimer’s rates soar, improving brain fitness may become our new mantra, generating as much science (and marketing spin) as the movement for physical fitness. But though many people recognize the value of mental exercise in preventing cognitive deterioration, most don’t know exactly what effective mental exercise entails. According to a 2006 survey conducted by the American Society on Aging and the MetLife Foundation, when asked how they stayed mentally fit, most respondents said that they read and/or exercise. These activities are important, but current brain research presents a more nuanced set of ingredients for brain health, including new and challenging mental tasks, good diet, exercise, social connection, stress reduction, and varied activities.

Marian Diamond, a professor of neuroscience and anatomy at Cal’s Department of Integrative Biology and a pioneer in research on brain enrichment, cautions, “People say, well, they’re doing crossword puzzles. That’s great, but if they’ve done crossword puzzles of the same kind for a year or so, that’s not a challenge. You need something that’s a little harder, where you have to work.”

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