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Brain upgrade. Bioenhancement: Why Upgrading Your Brain Will Make Us Less Human

The capabilities of the human brain, as we know, are not used to their fullest - by 5-10 percent. Scientists from different countries have been struggling to increase them for decades. It was only with the advent of information technology that the development of human cognitive abilities became practically feasible and widely accessible. But if in the USA “brain fitness” is an entire industry with more than 10 years of history, then in Russia everything is just beginning.

Detoxifying the mind

The idea of mastering and promoting technologies to improve brain performance was so captivating Sergei Belan that he left his job at a stable bank and launched the Vikium project with his personal savings. In almost two years, its founder, together with like-minded people, managed to turn the startup into a dynamically developing company, creating a new market niche in the field of cognitive technologies, in which he does not yet have competitors either in Russia or in the CIS.

“Our methods are based on scientific developments in cognitive training of brain functions at the Testing Center at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov “Humanitarian technologies”, which adapt to the level of development of a particular person, says Sergei Belan. – It is based on such well-known developments in the world as the test Erickson, Stroop effect, Schulte tables, but they are interpreted into online simulators accessible to almost everyone. You can start using them from the age of six.”

Then the project team began to create and launch their simulators online, which were immediately tested. First, on a sample of 3–5 thousand people, it was checked how much attention and memory improve or do not improve in one or another developmental block. Over time, the sample increased to 20–30 thousand users. The attitude towards the testing results is very critical - about thirty simulators, according to Sergei Belan, “remained lying on the shelf.”

Public Good and Business

The Vikium project is social in nature - and not only because testing and initial access to various simulators are provided free of charge, and even students can afford to pay for classes - about 900 rubles for six months. Vikium helps develop the mental abilities of children in orphanages - of course, free of charge. Belan is convinced that

One of the main and so far untapped reserves of Russia is the mental, creative activity of citizens.

Its “awakening” is a socially significant task, and for Sergei Belan it is a priority. And you can make money from the growing turnover of the company.

Of course, development requires investment. The first third-party money – 1.5 million rubles – came in the form of investments from the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF). Soon investment proposals followed from other funds, but the founder of Vikium approaches their selection very carefully - it is important for him that new injections do not reorient the project towards sales alone and “squeezing out” profits at any cost.

From gaming simulators to the NTI NeuroNet roadmap

In less than two years since the creation of the company, more precisely, in a year of active presence on the market, the number of users of online training machines has reached 140 thousand people.

The peculiarity of Vikium’s developments lies in the algorithm for selecting simulators to solve various problems facing the user.

For example, to develop logical thinking, you don’t need to use 5 simulators in a row; it’s enough to first improve your perception by giving a warm-up on attention, then on memory, and only then on logic itself.

The software, which the company employees who created it call a “robot,” remembers the result achieved by a person, analyzes which brain functions are leading and which are lagging behind compared to the average level in a particular age category, and recalculates the data weekly, adjusting or complicating subsequent tasks. To process and store a large amount of information, a powerful “cloud” server, received in the fall of 2014 under a grant from Microsoft, is used.

Interesting technological solutions and successful entrepreneurial experience of the Vikium company interested the experts of the Foresight Fleet 2015 organized by ASI, who discussed promising markets, including the neurotechnology market, within the framework of the National Technology Initiative (NTI). Having become involved in the development of the NeuroNet roadmap, Sergey Belan hopes that this will not interfere with his project. He plans to open not only offline centers for classes with an individual trainer, but also a laboratory for the study and development of human cognitive abilities. And also to increase the number of users of gaming simulators to 8 million people by 2018.

Upgrade is required!

Now you are smart, wealthy, successful and young. Well, or young at heart. It seems to you that nothing can happen to you. Well, or almost nothing, because you are doing everything to insure yourself against all sorts of troubles. However, beware! There is something you don't even know about. This problem is dementia! It visits those who, over the years, forget to upgrade their main computer - the brain! To prevent this from happening to you, read this article carefully.

How old are you?

Dementia In general, it seems that this is not about you at all. And it will never affect your family. Alas, things are not so rosy. Academician Bekhterev, the same one who devoted his life to studying the brain, once noted that the great happiness of dying without losing one’s mind on the roads of life will be given to only 20% of people. The rest, in old age, alas, will turn into evil or naive senile people and become ballast on the shoulders of their own grandchildren and adult children. 80% is significantly more than the number of those who, according to callous statistics, are destined to develop cancer, Parkinson's disease, or suffer from brittle bones in old age. In order to enter the lucky 20% in the future, you will have to try now.

Work hard!

The famous Soviet poet Zabolotsky came up with a universal recipe for a healthy life, which, I remember, all high school students were forced to memorize. Yes, yes, that same quatrain: “Do not let your soul be lazy, so as not to pound water in a mortar, the soul must work day and night, and day and night.” In fact, almost everyone begins to become lazy over the years. It's a paradox - we work a lot in our youth so as not to have problems in old age. But it turns out the other way around. The more we calm down and relax, the more harm we do to ourselves. Moreover, trouble creeps up unnoticed: “Horror! I’m standing in this little shop and realizing that I can’t add two three-digit numbers!” - an elegant lady emotionally tells her neighbors at a table in a Jordanian hotel. The lady is the chief accountant. It’s just that she’s had all her accounts entered into her computer for twenty years now, she doesn’t count her money, but looks at the cash register display and pays with a bank card. Where are the cash registers at the eastern market? What is 225 plus 162?

We feel sorry for ourselves "Me? Two stops on foot???" Over the years, we gradually forget about fitness and exercise machines, any other physical and mental stress. The level of requests is reduced to a banal set: “eat well - get plenty of sleep.” Concerns about daily bread disappear. Intellectual work comes down to solving crossword puzzles. But the level of demands and claims to life and to others increases exorbitantly: “I’ve had enough of the difficulties, now you get better!” The burden of the past weighs on us, but it is not always simple. The categorical nature and percentage of value judgments increases. Irritation from not understanding something results in rejection of reality. A person, without noticing it, becomes stupid, or even turns into a tyrant, widening the gap between himself and the world around him. Becomes hostile, deaf and blind to the call of loved ones. Loses physical and intellectual shape. Memory and thinking abilities suffer. And gradually a person moves away from the real world, creating his own, often cruel and hostile, painful fantasy world, from which everyone who comes into contact with it wants to run away as far as possible, wherever their eyes look.

A person has three images of a loved one.

The image is archetypal. This is the divine mother (or father), wife (or husband) that is a kind of standard from which we start when searching for or comparing real people. Mom is the best, warm, kind, unearthly. The husband is a knight, protector, friend. Image-memory. An ideal picture-memory of the best, most beautiful moments of life, woven from real events of the past. It is saturated with the smells of home, the taste of mom’s pies, dad’s tight hug, the words-promises of a husband or wife, and so on and so forth. It is this image that causes the most suffering when it begins to discord with reality. Thanks to this image, we find it difficult to make decisions. You see a person who has long lost his mind, but something inside is screaming: “No, it’s not him, this simply cannot be, because this is dad, my good dad.” We are more likely to part with our own minds rather than accept the truth life. Everything comes to an end, and good things too. I told Svetlana many times: “Find the courage to accept that the woman who was your mother is long gone.” She cried and every time she went to her home, hoping that now the door would open and her old mother would come out. And every time I left with nothing.

Because the third image is the face of reality! What you see in front of you now. When reality comes into conflict with two beautiful images living in our hearts, we tend to feel guilty. We tell ourselves, “I must have done something wrong. I probably didn’t love or care enough about these people.” The care begins - total! With the same internal frenzy, we go on a diet for the first time or go to the gym, suddenly discovering that our favorite student-era jeans, accidentally found in the depths of the closet, turn out to not fit on our stomach. But dementia does not disappear because someone... then he begins to love more. Therefore, a typical picture of our time: an adult son or daughter, with all their might, indulges the whims of an eccentric and unbearable old man, firmly believing that they are terrible children. And the latter, with some animal instinct sensing the vibes of guilt, become completely unbearable, and themselves begin to resemble small children in their behavior.

It is a great blessing to live your whole life while remaining sane.

Of sound mind.

“In sound mind and sober memory” - this seems to be written in various documents and pronounced when consolidating strong alliances. What to do if one of the partners retained their sound mind, but the other did not? This was the case with Natasha, who married an Irishman much older than herself and by the age of 40 found herself alone in a foreign country, with a disgusting knowledge of the language, almost no means of support and with an old senile husband in her arms. Having crossed the sixty-year mark, the husband imagined that Natasha was cheating on him and was plotting with her lover to kill him. This is exactly what he told all the neighbors he met along the way, when Natasha took him for a walk in a wheelchair. The neighbors listened, nodded sympathetically, but Natasha, who did not understand Irish well, could not understand why the neighbors suddenly stopped greeting her and somehow visited her husband too often, just when he was away. happens at home, and everyone seems to be aware of it. Limiting his wife's funds, the elderly husband even hired a private detective to verify his wife's infidelity. And when he brought evidence of fidelity, he accused the detective of conspiring with her. What can I say? Natasha could get a divorce, return to her homeland and try to forget about the terrible marriage as if it were a bad dream. But the superstitious and God-fearing Natasha imagined that if she left her husband in such a state, the same fate, dementia, would await her in the future.

Psychophysiologists object! Most of all, dementia threatens those who have lived their lives without changing their attitudes. Traits such as excessive adherence to principles, perseverance, and conservatism are more likely to lead to dementia in old age than flexibility, the ability to quickly change decisions, and emotionality. “The main thing, guys, is not to grow old in your heart!” - wrote another famous Russian classic. The one who, at the age of almost eighty, married a woman 40 years younger than himself. And, they say, he is still happy.

The first swallows.

Dementia never comes suddenly. Dementia is not madness or even a mental disorder, and certainly not a disease. Therefore, tracking its beginning is incredibly difficult. It progresses over the years, gaining more and more power over a person. What is now just a prerequisite may in the future become fertile ground for the germs of dementia. Here are some indirect signs that indicate that you may need to upgrade your brain.

1. You have become sensitive to criticism, while you yourself criticize others too often.

2. You don't want to learn new things. You would rather agree to have your old mobile phone repaired than understand the instructions for the new model.

3. You often say: “But before,” that is, you remember and are nostalgic for the old days.

4. You are ready to enthusiastically talk about something, despite the boredom in the eyes of your interlocutor. It doesn’t matter that he will fall asleep now, the main thing is that what you are talking about is interesting to you..

5. You find it difficult to concentrate when you start reading serious or scientific literature. Poor understanding and memory of what you read. You can read half a book today and forget the beginning tomorrow.

6. You began to talk about issues in which you were never knowledgeable. For example, about politics, economics, poetry or figure skating. Moreover, it seems to you that you have such a good command of the issue that you could start running the state right tomorrow, become a professional literary critic or sports judge.

7. Of the two films - a work by a cult director and a popular novella/detective - you choose the second. Why strain yourself once again? You don’t understand at all what interesting someone finds in these cult directors.

8. You are confident that others should adapt to you, and not vice versa.

9. Much in your life is accompanied by rituals. For example, you cannot drink your morning coffee from any mug other than your favorite one without first feeding the cat and flipping through the morning newspaper. The loss of even one element would unsettle you for the whole day.

10. At times you notice that you are tyrannizing those around you with some of your actions, and you do this without malicious intent, but simply because you think that it is more correct.

Brain upgrade!

Note that the brightest people, who retain their intelligence until their very old age, are, as a rule, people of science and art, that is, those who, due to their duty, have to strain their memory and perform daily mental work. Moreover, they have to constantly keep their finger on the pulse of modern life, keep up with fashion trends and even be ahead of them in some ways. This “production necessity” is a guarantee of happy, reasonable longevity.

1. Every two or three years, start learning something. Of course, you don’t have to go to college and get a third or even fourth education. But you may well take a short-term training course or learn a completely new profession. An old Sufi parable: “A student grows wiser in the eyes of God, but grows younger in the eyes of people!”

2. Surround yourself with young people. From them you can always pick up all sorts of useful things that will help you always remain modern.

3. If you haven’t learned anything new for a long time, maybe you just haven’t been looking?

4. From time to time, solve intellectual problems and take all sorts of subject tests, since there are now more than enough of both on the Internet.

5. Constantly learn foreign languages. Even if you don’t speak them and don’t learn the language properly, the need to regularly memorize new words will still help train your memory.

6. Grow not only upwards, but also deeper! Get out your old textbooks and periodically review your school and university curriculum!

7. Play sports! Regular physical activity before and after gray hair really saves you from dementia.

8. Train your memory more often, forcing yourself to remember poems that you once knew by heart, dance steps, programs that you learned at the institute, phone numbers of old friends and much more - everything you can remember.

9. Break habits and rituals! The more your next day differs from the previous one, the less likely it is that you will become “smoky” and develop dementia. Drive to work on different streets, give up the habit of ordering the same dishes, do something you’ve never been able to do before

10. Give more freedom to others and do as much as possible yourself. Sometimes it’s even useful to let the housekeeper go and make homemade cutlets on her own. Do not demand strict adherence to rules and routines from others. The more spontaneity, the more creativity. The more creativity, the longer you will retain your mind and intelligence!

A great Russian scientist, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times, devoted his life to revealing the secrets of the human brain, treated people with hypnosis, studied telepathy and crowd psychology.

Mysticism and materialism

Vladimir Bekhterev's experiments with hypnosis were perceived ambiguously by his contemporaries, especially the scientific community. At the end of the 19th century, there was a skeptical attitude towards hypnosis: it was considered almost quackery and mysticism. Bekhterev proved: this mysticism can be used in an exclusively applied way. Vladimir Mikhailovich sent carts through the streets of the city, collecting drunkards of the capital and delivering them to the scientist, and then conducted sessions of mass treatment of alcoholism using hypnosis. Only then, thanks to the incredible results of treatment, will hypnosis be recognized as an official method of treatment.

Brain map

Bekhterev approached the issue of studying the brain with the enthusiasm inherent in the pioneers of the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries. In those days, the brain was the real Terra Incognita. Based on a series of experiments, Bekhterev created a method that makes it possible to thoroughly study the paths of nerve fibers and cells. Thousands of the thinnest layers of frozen brain were attached one by one under a glass microscope, and detailed sketches were made from them, which were used to create a “brain atlas.” One of the creators of such atlases, the German professor Kopsch, said: “Only two people know perfectly the structure of the brain - God and Bekhterev.”

Parapsychology

In 1918, Bekhterev created an institute for brain research. Under him, the scientist creates a parapsychology laboratory, the main task of which was to study mind reading at a distance. Bekhterev was absolutely convinced of the materiality of thought and practical telepathy. To solve the problems of the world revolution, a group of scientists is not only thoroughly studying neurobiological reactions, but is also trying to read the language of Shambhala, and is planning a trip to the Himalayas as part of Roerich’s expedition.

Analysis of the communication problem

Issues of communication, mutual mental influence of people on each other occupy one of the central places in the socio-psychological theory and collective experiment of V. M. Bekhterev. Bekhterev considered the social role and functions of communication using the example of specific types of communication: imitation and suggestion. “If it weren’t for imitation,” he wrote, “there could be no personality as a social individual, and yet imitation draws its main material from communication with oneself.”
similar, between whom, thanks to cooperation, a kind of mutual induction and mutual suggestion develops." Bekhterev was one of the first scientists to seriously study the psychology of the collective person and the psychology of the crowd.

Child psychology

The tireless scientist even involved his children in experiments. It is thanks to his curiosity that modern scientists have knowledge about the psychology inherent in the infant period of human maturation. In his article “The Initial Evolution of Children’s Drawings in Objective Study,” Bekhterev analyzes the drawings of “girl M,” who is actually his fifth child, his beloved daughter Masha. However, interest in the drawings soon faded, leaving the door ajar to an untapped field of information, which was now provided to followers. The new and unknown always distracted the scientist from what had already been started and partially mastered. Bekhterev opened the doors.

Experiments with animals

V. M. Bekhterev with the help of trainer V.L. Durova conducted about 1278 experiments of mentally instilling information into dogs. Of these, 696 were considered successful, and then, according to the experimenters, solely because of incorrectly composed tasks. Processing of the material showed that “the dog’s answers were not a matter of chance, but depended on the influence of the experimenter on it.” This is how V.M. described it. Bekhterev's third experiment, when a dog named Pikki had to jump up on a round chair and hit the right side of the piano keyboard with his paw. “And here is the dog Pikki in front of Durov. He looks intently into her eyes and covers her muzzle with his palms for a while. Several seconds pass, during which Pikki remains motionless, but being released, he quickly rushes to the piano, jumps up on a round chair, and from the blow of his paw on the right side of the keyboard, several treble notes are heard.”

Unconscious telepathy

Bekhterev argued that the transmission and reading of information through the brain, this amazing ability called telepathy, can be realized without the knowledge of the suggestor and transmitter. Numerous experiments on the transmission of thoughts at a distance were perceived in two ways. It was as a result of the latest experiments that Bekhterev continued further work “under the gun of the NKVD.” The possibilities of instilling information in a person that aroused Vladimir Mikhailovich’s interest were much more serious than similar experiments with animals and, according to contemporaries, were interpreted by many as an attempt to create psychotronic weapons of mass destruction.

By the way...

Academician Bekhterev once noted that the great happiness of dying while maintaining reason on the roads of life will be given to only 20% of people. The rest will turn into angry or naive senile people in old age and become ballast on the shoulders of their own grandchildren and adult children. 80% is significantly more than the number of those who are destined to develop cancer, Parkinson's disease or suffer from brittle bones in old age. To enter the lucky 20% in the future, it is important to start now.

Over the years, almost everyone begins to become lazy. We work hard in our youth so that we can rest in our old age. However, the more we calm down and relax, the more harm we do to ourselves. The level of requests comes down to a banal set: “eat well - get plenty of sleep.” Intellectual work is limited to solving crossword puzzles. The level of demands and claims to life and to others increases, the burden of the past weighs down. Irritation from not understanding something results in rejection of reality. Memory and thinking abilities suffer. Gradually, a person moves away from the real world, creating his own, often cruel and hostile, painful fantasy world.

Dementia never comes suddenly. It progresses over the years, acquiring more and more power over a person. What is now just a prerequisite may in the future become fertile ground for the germs of dementia. Most of all, it threatens those who have lived their lives without changing their attitudes. Traits such as excessive adherence to principles, perseverance and conservatism are more likely to lead to dementia in old age than flexibility, the ability to quickly change decisions, and emotionality. “The main thing, guys, is not to grow old in your heart!”

See also:

Here are some indirect signs indicating that it is worth upgrading your brain.

1. You have become sensitive to criticism, while you yourself criticize others too often.

2. You don't want to learn new things. You would rather agree to have your old mobile phone repaired than understand the instructions for the new model.

3. You often say: “But before,” that is, you remember and are nostalgic for the old days.

7. Of two films - a work by a cult director and a popular novella/detective - you choose the second. Why strain yourself once again? You don’t understand at all what interesting someone finds in these cult directors.

8. You believe that others should adapt to you, and not vice versa.

9. Much in your life is accompanied by rituals. For example, you cannot drink your morning coffee from any mug other than your favorite one without first feeding the cat and flipping through the morning newspaper. Losing even one element would knock you out for the whole day.

10. At times you notice that you tyrannize those around you with some of your actions, and you do this without malicious intent, but simply because you think that it is more correct.

Recommendations for brain development

Note that the brightest people, who retain their intelligence into old age, as a rule, are people of science and art. Due to their duty, they have to strain their memory and perform daily mental work. They always keep their finger on the pulse of modern life, tracking fashion trends and even being ahead of them in some ways. This “production necessity” is a guarantee of happy, reasonable longevity.

1. Every two to three years, start learning something. You don't have to go to college and get a third or even fourth education. You can take a short-term training course or learn a completely new profession. You can start eating foods that you haven’t eaten before and learn new tastes.

2. Surround yourself with young people. From them you can always pick up all sorts of useful things that will help you always stay modern. Play with children, they can teach you a lot that you don’t even know about.

3. If you haven’t learned anything new for a long time, maybe you just haven’t been looking? Look around, how many new and interesting things are happening where you live.

4. From time to time, solve intellectual problems and take all kinds of subject tests.

5. Learn foreign languages, even if you don’t speak them. The need to regularly memorize new words will help train your memory.

6. Grow not only upward, but also deeper! Get out your old textbooks and periodically review your school and university curriculum.

7. Play sports! Regular physical activity before and after gray hair really saves you from dementia.

Brain upgrade

An upgrade in computer jargon means an increase in the power and capabilities of “artificial brains,” i.e., a personal computer. Fortunately, medicine has come up with means of such an upgrade for naturally produced brains. This role is played by so-called nootropics - substances that affect the state of neural connections. We have already told you that the brain is a complex system where its individual cells (neurons) are connected to each other through nerve endings. Information in the form of nerve impulses runs from one cell to another, and the result is something like the brain Internet.

During neurasthenia, due to constant disruptions in this system of connections, disintegration of brain activity as a whole occurs. Nootropics help bring all these connections into line with the norm, and most importantly, they help ensure that cells begin to adequately perceive and transmit the specified impulses. Moreover, they do this as correctly as possible, without causing side effects. All this is due to the specific action of these medicinal substances - they do not impose their policies on the nerve cells (as tranquilizers do, for example), but simply improve their physical form (scientifically this is called improving neurometabolism and increasing cerebroprotective properties).

After a course of nootropics, the head begins to think better, does it faster and better (it is no coincidence that medical students like to help themselves in this way before the exam session). In addition, the brain becomes more resistant to the effects of various “aggressive factors”. Another significant advantage of nootropics is their ability to improve the “quality of communication” between the cortex and subcortex; Of course, no revelations from the subconscious can be expected here, but an increase in the coherence of the brain is guaranteed.

Nootropics (and these primarily include nootropil (piracetam), encephabol, aminalon) are effective only when taken as a course, that is, when you take them for at least one or two months. Dosages, again, are indicated in the relevant instructions. Although, of course, consulting a doctor when prescribing nootropics will not hurt. The fact is that nootropics are used for slightly different purposes - in some cases for psychoasthenic conditions (neurasthenia), and in other cases - after traumatic brain injuries, strokes, etc. Therefore, both the course duration and dosages must be selected correctly .

Nootropics also include the tranquilizer phenibut (an anti-anxiety drug). It is especially good in the treatment of neurasthenia, since it acts on most of the pathological links of this “sore” - it improves the condition of brain tissue, reduces internal tension, improves sleep, and reduces the feeling of weakness and dizziness. But this remedy is not a panacea, and since, as expected, it is a tranquilizer, it can only be prescribed by a doctor and has other limitations, which we will discuss below.

Recently, biological nootropics have become especially popular - these are preparations based on the extract of leaves of the ginkgo biloba tree. In asthenic conditions, they sometimes turn out to be even more effective than synthetic nootropics. Plus, ginkgo biloba preparations have a vascular effect, that is, they help not only brain cells, but also the vessels that supply them, which, as you understand, is important.

One way or another, it is difficult for me to imagine effective therapy for neurasthenia without the use of nootropics - either synthetic or herbal.

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Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" has been a hotly debated quote for centuries. Scientists either agreed or disagreed about the correctness of these words. Recent studies have made us think that such a pattern exists not only in the direct sense, but also in the reverse sense. The development of the brain is directly influenced by our activities, lifestyle, and physical activity. But how can you find time to improve your brain function in the bustle of weekdays? Here are some effective, science-based ways.

Set yourself new challenges

The National Institute of Mental Health has spent more than thirty years researching how various activities stimulate cognitive function. It has been found that people who perform diverse tasks, create new solutions and approaches, have a large number of social connections, and perform well on cognitive tests. The results of specialists whose activities involve a monotonous routine turned out to be significantly lower.

Any person can set a fundamentally new task for himself. It doesn’t have to be complicated, the main thing is that it’s non-standard for him.

For example, you can do assembling large puzzles, embroidering, or solving physics problems from a school course.

So, an interesting experiment was carried out in Hamburg. A group of young people began juggling, and after a few days, all showed an increase in the proportion of gray matter. But some time after they gave up their new hobby, everything returned to its place. Therefore, continuity is important here: discover something new every time and constantly stimulate the brain.

Study, study, study

Until recently, it was believed that brain cells do not regenerate. It was also believed that each region of the brain was responsible for a specific task area. Now the statement about the cells has been refuted, and the boundaries of responsibility are blurred. The reason for this was the work of the French neurosurgeon Paul Broca. His research showed that the brain is very plastic and is capable of creating new neural connections.

Against the background of this statement, many experiments were carried out. Thus, in California, monkeys were required to perform actions with one finger. After that, an increase in neural connections was observed in the pictures before and after classes.

It has also been found that patients with dyslexia (a specific reading disorder) improve their ability to recognize sounds after extensive training. The part of the brain responsible for this ability became larger and more active.

It is also important that the human brain is able to transfer skills from the “non-working” area to the “working” one. Such results were achieved by people who, after a stroke, lost the functionality of part of this organ, but continuously trained it. All this is the birth of neural connections - neurogenesis.

It’s not worth even talking about the liveliness of the minds of people who have been engaged in scientific activities all their lives. Therefore, the conclusion suggests itself: neurons, like muscles, need constant training.

There is a reason to kill two birds with one stone: to study not only to increase neural connections, but also for direct benefit to life. You can take the course “Development of Phenomenal Memory”. Exercises for memory development are useful both as training and as acquiring the desired skill. You can easily begin to remember all mobile numbers, large amounts of information and quickly learn foreign words.

Play music

Neurologists have proven that while playing musical instruments, a person’s brain “lights up” - its areas are activated and remain in continuous operation for a long time.

Interestingly, scientists from Kansas found that the IQ of professional musicians does not decrease even in old age.

It is no coincidence that parents often send their children to music school. Students and schoolchildren who know how to play the violin show better learning results than their peers.

If your soul lies and you have free time, then why not devote it to music? Pick up a classical guitar or start playing the ukulele - there are many video lessons online for children and adults that help them quickly and easily master musical instruments.

Go on a hunger strike

Harvard physiologist Richard Joll found that even with proper nutrition, rare consumption of fast carbohydrates speeds up the memorization of complex information and stimulates the brain. However, there is a way to think better without harming your health. We are talking about proper fasting.

This is also facilitated by increasing the intervals between meals. Such an experiment does not require additional time or money, but you should approach changes in your diet very carefully.

Make a note

There is an interesting method, tested by students of the Department of Theoretical Physics, who took notes in a special way for two months.

The summary is compiled as follows:

You need to carefully read the text twice.
Rewrite it verbatim, having the original in front of you.
Re-read what you wrote.
Summarize the information received without looking at the example.
After reading your resume, write the entire text yourself.

The method is useful not only because it forces the brain to be in continuous work: reading, memorizing, reproducing, structuring. The fact is that the nerve endings on the fingers affect mnemonic abilities. Working with a pencil or pen, a person inevitably trains them.

As Albert Camus said, a thinker moves forward only if he does not rush to conclusions, even if they seem obvious to him. Don't be afraid to try all the methods, even if you don't think they're right for you.