Speaking of Psychology: Keeping your brain fit, with Tracey Shors

Much like in our arms or legs, our brain’s “muscles” can rebuild and grow if they’re given the right exercise. In this episode, neuroscientist Tracey Shors talks about how her research has led her to explore links between physical and mental exercise.

Tracey Shors, PhDopens in new window, is a distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University. With more than 130 scientific publications, Shors investigates the neuronal mechanisms through which the brain learns and remembers. Shors and her team have translated these data into a clinical intervention known as MAP Trainingopens in new window, which stands for Mental and Physical Training.

Shors received her doctorate in physiological psychology from the University of Southern California. She has been at Rutgers University since 1997. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation.

Audrey Hamilton: Ever thought about taking up a new sport? A new hobby? Or maybe an instrument? If you’re an adult, learning new things is essential to keeping the brain “fit”. In this episode, we speak with a neuroscientist who is trying to not only prove the “use it or lose it” theory, but show us why keeping the body moving, can also do our brains good.

I’m Audrey Hamilton, and this is “Speaking of Psychology.”

Tracey Shors is a distinguished professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for collaborative neuroscience at Rutgers University. As a neuroscientist, she investigates how the brain learns and remembers. And when it comes to the brain, she is discovering how important it is to “use it or lose it”. Welcome, Dr. Shores.

Tracey Shors: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to speak with you today.

Audrey Hamilton: Your research focuses on something called neurogenesis. I have no idea, can you explain what that means?

Tracey Shors: Yes. Neurogenesis is the productions of new neurons in the brain and of course neurons are the major cells in the brain that are used to communicate information. For many years, we didn’t know that the brain continues to make new neurons after birth. However, about 10 or 15 years ago, it became clear that the brain does continue to produce these new neurons, and they’re produced in a part of the brain known as the hippocampus. The hippocampus in involved in learning. So there’s been a lot of work recently to show that these cells are involved in learning, and are certainly effect by learning.

Audrey Hamilton: Keeping our brains fit seems to be a lot like exercising our bodies. Now, you found a way to combine mental and physical exercise. Can you talk about these exercises, also known as “MAP training?” What does “MAP” stand for?

Tracey Shors: Sure. One of the things that’s really interesting about these new neurons, not only that they exist in the first place, but they’re also very responsive to conditions that people engage in, in everyday life. So, for example, the cells are produced, and more cells are produced during aerobic exercise. So if this is a laboratory animal, a rat loves to run, and if it runs continuously, it produces many more cells than it would otherwise produce if it were sedentary. We also know though, that many of these cells, once they’re born, they die. So the cells are generated, but then, between two and three weeks after they’re born, most of them perish, through a process called “programmed cell death”.

One of the things that my laboratory has been interested in, is investigating for nearly a decade now, is the effect of learning on these new neurons. And basically what we find is that animals that are trained to learn something new, keep the cells alive. If animals aren’t trained to learn something new, or if they’re trained and they don’t learn, the cells continue to die. So it really is an example of “use it or lose it”. So, in the case of exercising your muscles, of course you want to exercise your muscles to keep them, to maintain their presence. In the same way with these new neurons, if you learn something new, as long as it’s challenging, and you’re successful at it, then the cells will survive.

We’ve also determined that the cells, once they’re rescued from death, they remain indefinitely. So basically they become so-called “incorporated” into the rest of your brain. And so I kind of wanted to take some of this information and develop it in to an intervention that could potentially help people. And so we devised this intervention. It’s called MAP training because it stands for mental and physical training. And, we’ve been providing this intervention to several populations

Essentially what happens is our participants engage in 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and the idea is that we are increasing the number of new neurons in the brain during this process. And then, they engage in 30 minutes of focused attention meditation, so as you probably know, mediation is a very effortful learning process and we use a type of meditation where the participant sits in silence and counts their breath. One of the reasons many meditation practices uses the breath is because it’s always present, always changing and its always accessible. So the participant starts counting their breath, and then when thoughts interfere and they start thinking about the past or the present, or worrying about some event, they are instructed to return back to the breath.

So this is a skill, and if you’ve ever done it, you know it is pretty difficult to do, to maintain your attention, but you can get better with practice. So we find, in the several populations that we’ve done this, we found that this combination of aerobic exercise and mental training meditation enhances their overall physical health, so for example, the amount of oxygen that they consume in their body increases significantly. We also find that their levels of depression are significantly reduced, their levels of anxiety are significantly reduced and, perhaps most importantly, or most impressive, is the change in rumination. Your rumination is this process where someone repeats memories or goes over memories from the past over and over, and women in particular, are particularly inclined to ruminate about the past. And so one of the things that this intervention seems to do is lessen that tendency. And that makes people happier, and more present in their lives.

Audrey Hamilton: You just mentioned women, and how they tend to ruminate more. What has your research shown regarding how women and men learn? Do they learn differently? 

Tracey Shors: They do learn differently. It’s hard to make sweeping generalizations, partly because it’s such a volatile subject. But there are some differences. You know men tend to do better at spatial tasks. Women tend to do a little bit better in verbal based tasks. In laboratory animals, we see fairly striking differences, and I have to say, the good news for females is, female rodents at least, tend to learn better than males on many tasks. And one of the nice things is that then they rescue more of these new neurons.

I think the important thing about sex differences is to realize though that these are differences in the distribution. And so in the individual, obviously, we can’t predict how well they would learn just based on their gender. Well, once we appreciate sex differences in learning or other cognitive processes, we can apply those to sex differences in mental illness, for example. So one of the things I’ve always been intrigued by and concerned about is the tendency for women to express symptoms of depression, and PTSD and anxiety, and they do so much more than men typically do. And so some of these processes that we are learning about, some of these cognitive processes, like rumination, for example, might lead to these sex differences.

Audrey Hamilton: Can you give me an example of something you do to keep your brain fit? Meditation, or do you do brain exercise? I’m just curious as to how you take what you learn in your lab, and bring it out into your real life.

Tracey Shors: I mean, being a scientist is actually pretty challenging.

Audrey Hamilton: I was going to say, that’s one big brain exercise!

Tracey Shors: It is a good exercise, and it’s always changing. And you always have to learn new things, and it’s always effortful. It requires a great deal of effort. So I feel lucky to have had such an interesting career. I do like to exercise. In particular, exercises, not just exercise alone, but I like exercises that engage your mind somehow with activities like sports or dancing, or something where you really have to think while you’re exercising. I do meditate. I only started meditating about seven or eight years ago; you know I don’t know if I could say I like it. I know it’s useful and I find it interesting, but it’s also difficult 

Audrey Hamilton: I imagine if you’re doing it well, it takes a lot of effort.

Tracey Shors: It does. And you have to kind of make yourself, at least I find, and I think a lot of people that meditate, they have to make themselves do it. Like I have to say “OK, now I’m going to meditate. I feel like I’m not very centered” or “I feel like I’m very anxious.” And you have to make yourself sit.

I think the main thing that I wrestle with as an older adult (middle aged to older adult) is finding new ways to really challenge yourself. Like as you get older, you tend to go back to activities you’ve already done. Maybe you travel to the same places, or you do the same sports, or you play the same music. And I think we need as we get older, and I think young people too, but particularly as you get older, to really try to break out of our habits, and challenge our mind with new activities, even though they might be frustrating.

Audrey Hamilton: Well great, thank you so much for joining us Dr. Shores. It was a pleasure.

Tracey Shors: Thank you very much.

Audrey Hamilton: To listen to more episodes, please go to our website .With the American Psychological Association’s “Speaking of Psychology,” I’m Audrey Hamilton.