Dr. Majid Fotuhi

That's brain training.

Your brain is like a muscle and the more you stimulate it, the better it will function and the more it will grow.

There's a layer of the brain on the outside that's like a blanket that covers all other brain structures.

It's called cortex.

And then you have this hippocampus, which is the size of your thumb.

It's deeper in the brain, one on the right, one on the left, near your ears.

Cortex and hippocampus are the brain areas that are most important for your cognitive abilities.

whether reading, writing, typing, driving, doing your taxes, do everything you do.

All the cognitive things you do emanate from cortex and hippocampus.

And different parts of the cortex and hippocampus form networks.

for various things you do.

So you can network for language and network for attention and network for executive function and network for doing nothing.

You know, just sitting there doing nothing.

And when you stimulate your brain, you activate these networks and the more active they are, they literally grow in size.

For example, if you learn a language in three months, the parts of the brain for language literally grow, literally, like three millimeters larger, five millimeters larger, significant, so much so you can see on a brain MRI.

So brain training is an important part of brain health maintenance.

Now, many people say, oh, but many studies show that brain training doesn't do anything with Alzheimer's disease.

And that's true.

Why?

Let's say you have sleep apnea, centered lifestyle, diabetes, obesity, stressful life, and then you do, let's say, 10 minutes of brain games.