The brain is a mighty complex organ that can play many tricks on us, especially as we age and undergo a vast assortment of changes throughout our lives.

I’m not sure if most 53-year-olds think so much about these things as I do. Perhaps it is because of my line of work that makes me so aware of it or maybe it’s just part of aging.

Whatever the reason, it fascinates me most of the time, saddens me others and sometimes just plain scares the heck out of me. But have no fear. There is something we can all do about the natural decline of the brain as explained by Dr. Michael Merzenich, a professor at The University of California, during an interview with Dr. Mercola.

Below is a brief explanation of brain plasticity by Dr. Merzenich:

“It was once thought that any brain function lost was irretrievable. Today, research into what’s referred to as “brain plasticity” has proven that this is not the case. On the contrary, your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity.”

Aside from toxicity, our modern lifestyle plays a part in cognitive decline, as described by Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus at the University of California, who has pioneered research in brain plasticity for more than 30 years. He founded the Scientific Learning Corporation in Oakland, California and Posit Science in San Francisco; both specializing in science research into brain training software.

Dr. Merzenich’s career arose from an interest in philosophy and a fascination with the nature and origin of the human persona and individuality, and how brain processes might account for the evolution of our individual abilities. He believed that those who have learning disabilities, the natural progressions of these brain processes must have encountered errors.

Use It or Lose It — the Principles of Brain Plasticity

The inherent plasticity of the brain was discovered some 20 years ago, when animal models demonstrated that brain deterioration and aging was in fact reversible, provided the proper stimulus. Dr. Merzenich describes brain plasticity as follows:

“It’s simple in concept. The brain changes physically, functionally and chemically, as you acquire an ability or as you improve an ability. You know this instinctively. Something must be changing as your brain advances, as it progresses.

Actually what it is doing is changing the local wiring, changing the details of how it’s connected. It’s also changing itself in other ways, physically, functionally, and those changes account for that improvement, or account for the acquisition of an ability.

You don’t realize it but as you acquire an ability – let’s say, the ability to read – you actually create a system in the brain that does not exist, or that’s not in place, in the non-reader. It [the ability] actually evolves in the brain.”

As Dr. Merzenich explains, your brain is designed and constructed to be stimulated and challenged, and to carefully examine, resolve and interpret your environment. During the early days of mankind’s development, keeping track of the details was imperative for survival.

Today, however, we tend to try to remove ourselves from the details of life. For example, instead of keeping track of appointments and to-do lists in our head, we use electronic gadgets with reminder features. Our streets are paved and lit, requiring virtually no attention to navigate from one location to another. And if you don’t sufficiently challenge your brain with new, surprising information, it eventually begins to deteriorate.

“Generally, by the third or fourth decade in life, you’re in decline,” Dr. Merzenich says. “One of the things that happens across this period is that you go from a period of the acquisition of abilities to largely using those abilities that have been acquired earlier in life. By that I mean to say, the fundamental skills that you apply in your profession or in your everyday life are things you master, and you’re doing them without thought.”

To a large extent, you’re operating most of your day without really being consciously engaged in the things you’re doing… I’ve gone without really thinking very much about the physical acts of driving. I’m substantially disengaged.

This has been contributed to substantially by modern culture. Modern culture is all about taking out surprises…to basically reduce the stimulation in a sense on one level so that we can engage ourselves in sort of an abstract level of operations.

How Your Daily Lifestyle Can Improve Your Brain Function

Aside from engaging in a computer-based brain exercise program, Dr. Merzenich lists several things you can do on a daily basis, as part of your day-to-day lifestyle, to help maintain optimal brain fitness:

• Get 15-30 minutes of physical exercise each day. When exercising, think about using your brain to control your actions. That means, skip the iPod and instead take in the details of your environment.
• Spend about five minutes every day working on the refinement of a specific, small domain of your physical body.
• Find ways to engage yourself in new learning as a continuous aspect of your life, such as taking on new hobbies, learning new skills.
• Stay socially engaged.
• Practice “mindfulness,” in which you’re attentively focusing on the world around you again, as if you’re seeing it for the first time.

Nutrition and Brain Health

1. Optimize your vitamin D levels through safe sun exposure, a safe tanning bed and/or vitamin D3 supplements.
2. Take a high-quality animal-based omega-3 fat. I recommend consuming high quality krill oil to meet the optimal amount of omega-3 fats needed to achieve good health and fight cognitive decline
3. Avoid processed foods and sugars, especially fructose. Excessive sugar and grain consumption are the driving factors behind insulin resistance, and the strategies that protect your brain are very similar to those for avoiding diabetes. There is simply no question that insulin resistance is one of the most pervasive influences on brain damage, as it contributes massively to inflammation, which will prematurely degenerate your brain. Ideally, you’ll want to restrict your total fructose consumption to below 25 grams a day. This includes refraining from eating too many fruits, if you normally eat a lot of them. If you consume more than 25 grams a day of fructose, you can damage your cells by creating insulin and leptin resistance and raising your uric acid levels.
4. Avoid grains — Even whole, organic grains will convert to sugar in your body and spike your insulin levels.
5. Avoid artificial sweeteners — Aspartame, for example, is an excitotoxin that can literally destroy your brain cells. There are many studies showing the dangers of aspartame.
6. Avoid soy — Unfermented soy products are another common food that should be avoided if you want to maintain healthy brain function.