In the basement of the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, there’s a
group of people who spend their weekday afternoons sitting
around a computer lab discussing neurons and glial cells.
They’re students in a popular new course at the center aimed at
improving memory. Like their peers around the country, Oakland
residents are living longer, and they are more active in caring
for their own cognitive health. Now, for the first time, the
center is responding to their needs by offering a computerized
brain fitness course developed by San Francisco-based
PositScience. Ranging in age from 61 to 97, they work through a
series of six listening exercises each designed to challenge a
different part of the brain and to stimulate the release of
neuromodulators, or learning chemicals. And six weeks in, some
in the class are already reporting increased alertness, sharper
focus and better learning. “Now I remember what I’m forgetting,”
quipped April Hecter, 65, of Oakland.