Todd Sampson is back on ABC TV with the second series of his popular program “Redesign my brain”. Todd’s central message is about brain plasticity – our brain is adaptable and can learn new skills, even as we get older.
On his second show in this series, he introduced his brain training mentor, Dr Michael Merzenich. Dr Merzenich helped Todd improve his seeing and hearing abilities so that he could achieve his safe breaking skills in the challenge he was set.
Dr Merzenich is regarded as “The father of brain plasticity” as he was one of the leading researchers in the field of neuroscience, who discovered that the brain was not “hard wired” and inflexible. Because it could change the way it operated and learn all sorts of new skills, it’s possible for people with brain injuries to make “miraculous” recoveries, if they receive the proper treatment.
Brain plasticity also opens up new possibilities for people who don’t have brain injuries or diseases. This is what Todd Sampson is exploring as he teaches his brain to acquire new skills or improve existing ones.
If you’d like to learn a bit more about brain plasticity, Dr Merzenich has written an introductory article about it in our book “How to stay Healthy, Active and Sharp in Retirement.” The book is available on the home page of this web site.
While we saw Todd doing some brain training exercises on his computer, the show didn’t give much information about these exercises. Dr Merzenich and his team have created a series of exercises which are available to all of us. He has a web site where you can get access to them. You can select from a variety of what look like “computer games” to work on specific areas of your brain that you wish to improve. For example, there are different exercises for improving your memory, attention, brain processing speed, hearing, navigation skills and people skills.
You can get a free trial of some of these exercises, but if you really want to get serious about improving your brain’s performance, you’ll need to pay a monthly fee of AUD$16. If you’d like to find out more, there’s a link on our web site to Dr Merzenich’s. Just click on “HEALTH” on the menu at the top of the page and at the bottom right corner of the Health page, click on an ad with the caption “Improve your memory now”. This will take you to his Brain HQ site.
The brain training exercises you’ll discover are certainly interesting to work on and are backed by a lot of research which clearly indicate that they work.