Neuroplasticity revisited: Brain Games

by David Wallace Barr IV

I first wrote about neuroplasticity here in 2021 (https://www.brainmakr.info/2021/03/getting-older-why-neuroplasticity.html). Here's a newer and even more authoritative statement of what it means: "Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity, is a process that involves adaptive structural and functional changes to the brain." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557811/#:~:text=Neuroplasticity%2C%20also%20known%20as%20neural,functional%20changes%20to%20the%20brain.). And if your goal is to remember things better, then neuroplasticity is really good news.

Adaptive, with respect to changes in the brain, has to be good, right? Adaptive means something that adjusts to better match current circumstances. Here's a simple, imaginary example. Let's say I can only move by walking but that's no problem because I can walk to or from my home any time. 

But if my home becomes surrounded by water because of global warming, then that change has created a problem for me. The water is too deep for me to walk through and I'm stuck at home. But if I then learn to swim, I have made an adaptive change in my ability to move around. I have reacted to the new reality of island life by making a positive adaptation to the new situation.

Neuroplasticity means anyone's brain can respond in similar ways to unfortunate changes the individual encounters. If the brain is injured through accident or disease, some of the brain's capacity to make decisions or memorize useful information may be lost. Neuroplasticity means that uninjured parts of the brain may be able to take on some of the function that has been lost. 

If brain cells, neurons, are lost or don't work as well due to aging, it may be harder for us to solve everyday problems or continue to master complex behaviors like driving. Neuroplasticity means that the brain is able to grow new cells that can enable us to keep on successfully solving problem and driving safely.

How does neuroplasticity happen? Is it something we can control? One of the relatively recent advances in research says, "Yes we can!" And we can do it with brain games.

I have subscribed for the last 18 years to the 'Mind, Mood and Memory' monthly newsletter from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston. And for most of that time the best medical advice from both scientific research and clinical practice said, again and again, that although brain games may be entertaining, there was no hard evidence that playing them could actually improve brain function. Today that skeptical outlook has changed. In a recent article on Healthline (https://www.healthline.com/health/rewiring-your-brain), six ways to rewire your brain, via neuroplasticity, are reviewed. And number one on the list is playing games.

Now except for childhood, I've never been one for playing games. I could never see the point. There seemed to be so many more interesting and more creative things to do instead. But now that I have a strong interest in preserving and improving brain functions, especially memory, I'm willing to take a closer look.

Here's what I've found about some of the brain enhancing exercises out there that are available to most everyone. First, they seem to fall into two general groups... games and puzzles. Since I have little experience with video games, I thought I'd try a few out. Those that are free would be among my first choices and I found a highly rated one called 'Two Dots.' It's a simple but most engaging game that you can install on your phone and pull out to play for a few minutes whenever you're waiting for something else to happen. The idea is to draw lines on the screen with your finger that connect similar colored dots together.

In the screen-grab above, for instance, you can connect six blue dots in a rectangle. Once you've done that your score increases and you are presented with a new screen with a different constellation of colored dots. Increasingly difficult skill levels keep you playing.

I've played some chess years ago, and even owned a couple of chess sets, including one very handsome one that came as a gift. But now you can play online, against the computer, and for free. Still, chess can be frustrating. Computers as you may know are now pretty darned good at chess. I tried an online chess game recently and gave up early on because I was clearly outclassed. Chess is probably still one of those games that is most enjoyably played in person.

Even those violent, shoot-em-up games are supposed to be good for your brain. So if that's your cup of imaginary gunsmoke, give one of them a try. 

Attempting to solve puzzles is also great for keeping an agile brain and can also be undertaken alone or in groups. My wife loves Sudoku, the number puzzle that has you filling in a grid with numbers that must include all the digits from 1 to 9. It's a relatively solitary pursuit, although if you made a copy of a puzzle, two could compete to see who would complete it first. There are lots of other number and word puzzles as well, many offered freely online. Crossword puzzles are a universally recognized example.

I find jigsaw puzzles particularly attractive because of the seemingly endless colors and shapes of the pieces. Putting a big one together can take many weeks if you can only devote an hour or two at a time. One drawback is that you have to have enough space to leave the whole thing undisturbed on a table for the entire time it takes to finish it. On the plus side, jigsaws are one of the classic group puzzle solving activities.

Fortunately I've discovered that there are free jigsaw puzzles offered online. They can be big enough to offer an absorbing hour or two for me. Yes, you can move pieces around by dragging them with a computer mouse or your finger. And when you put two or more pieces together in the right configuration they actually snap into place and can be moved around as a group. As long as you don't close your browser it seems you can keep on coming back again and again to complete the puzzle picture. 

In future I plan to give games and puzzles more of my time. If they can stimulate the growth of new constellations of brain cells then we all have a new way of protecting our memory.