Brain training reverses rats' age-related cognitive decline By
Jack Mazurak Specialized brain training targeted at the regions
of a rat's brain that process sound reversed many aspects of
normal, age-related cognitive decline and improved the health of
the brain cells, according to a new study from researchers at
the University of California, San Francisco University and the
University of Mississippi Medical Center. The results indicate
that people who experience age-related cognitive decline,
including slower mental processing and decreased response to new
stimuli, might also benefit from specially designed mental
exercises. "From middle age onward, there are universal changes
in the brain affecting perceptual processing," said Etienne de
Villers-Sidani, M.D., a neurologist and postdoctoral fellow with
the UCSF Department of Otolaryngology who was the lead author on
the study. "We used to think these were permanent changes and
now are beginning to think maybe they're not." The study found
that intense audito