The human brain is the command centre for the nervous system and enables thoughts, memory, movement, and emotions by a complex function that is the highest product of biological evolution. Maintaining a healthy brain during one’s life is the uppermost goal in pursuing health and longevity. As the population ages, the burden of neurological disorders and challenges for the preservation of brain health increase. It is therefore vital to understand what brain health is and why it is important. This article is the first in a series that aims to define brain health, analyse the effect of major neurological disorders on brain health, and discuss how these disorders might be treated and prevented.
Definition of brain health
Currently, there is no universally recognised definition of brain health. Most existing definitions have only a general description of normal brain function or emphasise one or two dimensions of brain health. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defined brain health as an ability to perform all the mental processes of cognition, including the ability to learn and judge, use language, and remember.1 The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA) presidential advisory defined optimal brain health as “average performance levels among all people at that age who are free of known brain or other organ system diseases in terms of decline from function levels, or as adequacy to perform all activities that the individual wishes to undertake.”2
The brain is a complex organ and has at least three levels of functions that affect all aspects of our daily lives: interpretation of senses and control of movement; maintenance of cognitive, mental, and emotional processes; and maintenance of normal behaviour and social cognition. Brain health may therefore be defined as the preservation of optimal brain integrity and mental and cognitive function at a given age in the absence of overt brain diseases that affect normal brain function.
So, then the question is how someone can improve ones brain health? Below are the most important practices, according to a various number of studies, for an ultimately better brain health:
Sleep & Relaxation
Good sleep is the backbone of all brain health. Without good sleep, your brain cannot function. Memory loss, for instance, is often associated with a lack of sleep. When you are sleeping, a structure in the brain called the hippocampus recalls and consolidates recent memories – and without sleep, this natural process is halted. Furthermore, during sleep, the brain gets rid of waste products such as beta-amyloid, which if aggregated to plaques is associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Sleep also improves mood and the immune system and may lead to weight loss.
Food & Nutrition
Cells all over your body need to produce ATP – aka the “energy molecule”. During this process, the cells release free radicals. Excess free radicals can lead to oxidative stress and damage of cells – including nerve cells (oxidative stress). The main factor that increases or decreases the number of free radicals in your blood is food. Healthy food, especially vegetables, which are full of antioxidants like broccoli and spinach, decrease free radicals. Unhealthy food normally contain high amounts of sugars and carbohydrates which can increase the number of free radicals. Healthy food can also improve the necessary chemistry of the brain leading to better cognition. For example, healthy fats like Omega-3 have been shown to improve memory while also being beneficial for the whole body.
Physical Exercise
Exercising 20 min a day doing any kind of aerobic activity has shown to have great benefits. It makes the cells of your body much stronger and less prone to oxidative stress. It also improves blood flow to the brain and hence more oxygen and nutrients delivered to the nerve cells. Exercise also stimulates chemical changes in the brain that enhance learning, mood and thinking.
Meditation
Studies show that practising meditation regularly has great benefits. It helps not only managing stressful situations but also improves memory. In one study it is shown that meditation changes the structure of the brain. It increases the volume of the hippocampus which is responsible for learning and memory and decreases the volume of the amygdala which is responsible for fear and anxiety. If this got you interested and you want to get started with meditation, take a look at these two books.
Social Interaction
In a shocking study, a group from Harvard medical school reported that feelings of loneliness may have detrimental consequences on cognition, e.g memory loss. Being engaged in social activity is an important pillar of your brain health. Try at least to stay in touch with your family and friends. Finally, we would like to recommend these two books, which are full of tips and good practices that boost your brain health.
Effect of major neurological disorders on brain health
Several neurological disorders may disrupt brain function and affect humans’ health. Medically, neurological disorders that cause brain dysfunction can be classified into three groups:
- Brain diseases with overt damage to brain structures, such as cerebrovascular diseases, traumatic brain injury, brain tumours, meningitis, and communication and sensory disorders
- Functional brain disorders with detectable destruction of brain connections or networks, such as neurodegenerative diseases (eg, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias) and mental disorders (eg, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and drug abuse)
- Other brain disorders without detectable structural or functional impairment, such as migraine and sleep disorders.
These neurological disorders may have different or common effects on brain health and function. For instance, Alzheimer’s disease is the main type of dementia, with a decline in different domains of cognitive function. Mood disorders may cause dysfunction in execution, reward processing, and emotional regulations. In addition to physical disability, aphasia, gait and balance problems, and cerebrovascular diseases may lead to cognitive impairment and dementia, which are neglected by both patients and physicians.
Ageing and burden of neurological disorders
Human ageing is mainly reflected in the aspects of brain ageing and degradation of brain function. The number of people aged 60 years and over worldwide was around 900 million in 2015 and is expected to grow to two billion by 2050.3 With the increases in population ageing and growth, the burden of neurological disorders and challenges to the preservation of brain health steeply increase. People with neurological disorders will have physical disability, cognitive or mental disorders, and social dysfunction and be a large economic burden.
Globally, neurological disorders were the leading cause of disability adjusted life years (276 million) and the second leading cause of death (9 million) in 2016, according to the Global Burden of Diseases study.4 Stroke, migraine, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and meningitis are the largest contributors to neurological disability adjusted life years.4 About one in four adults will have a stroke in their lifetime, from the age of 25 years onwards.5 Roughly 50 million people worldwide were living with dementia in 2018, and the number will more than triple to 152 million by 2050.6 In the following decades, governments will face increasing demand for treatment, rehabilitation, and support services for neurological disorders.
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- ↵Gorelick PB, Furie KL, Iadecola C, et al., American Heart Association/American Stroke Association
- ↵WHO Global Health Ethics team. Ageing. https://www.who.int/ethics/topics/ageing/en/. 2019
- ↵GBD 2016 Neurology Collaborators.
- ↵Feigin VL, Nguyen G, Cercy K, et al., GBD 2016 Lifetime Risk of Stroke Collaborators
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- ↵Modi HN, Singh H, Yang GZ, Darzi A, Leff DR
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9. Donovan, N. J., Okereke, O. I., Vannini, P., Amariglio, R. E., Rentz, D. M., Marshall, G. A., … & Sperling, R. A. (2016). Association of higher cortical amyloid burden with loneliness in cognitively normal older adults. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(12), 1230-1237.
10. Walker, M. P., & Stickgold, R. (2006). Sleep, memory, and plasticity. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 57, 139-166.
11. Besedovsky, L., Lange, T., & Born, J. (2012). Sleep and immune function. Pflügers Archiv-European Journal of Physiology, 463(1), 121-137.
12. Beccuti, G., & Pannain, S. (2011). Sleep and obesity. Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care, 14(4),402.
13. Shokri-Kojori, E., Wang, G. J., Wiers, C. E., Demiral, S. B., Guo, M., Kim, S. W., … & Miller, G. (2018). β-Amyloid accumulation in the human brain after one night of sleep deprivation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(17), 4483-4488
14. Lobo, V., Patil, A., Phatak, A., & Chandra, N. (2010). Free radicals, antioxidants and functional foods: Impact on human health. Pharmacognosy Reviews, 4(8), 118.
15. Amen, D. G., Harris, W. S., Kidd, P. M., Meysami, S., & Raji, C. A. (2017). Quantitative erythrocyte omega-3 EPA plus DHA levels are related to higher regional cerebral blood flow on brain SPECT. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 58(4), 1189-1199
Books
16. The End of Mental Illness by Daniel Amen
17. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle
18. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John J. Ratey, Eric Hagerman
13. Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life, by Max Lugavere
19. The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity by Norman Doidge
20. Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence by Rick Hanson
21. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
21. The Genius Life: Heal Your Mind, Strengthen Your Body, and Become Extraordinary by Max Lugavere
23. Hölzel, B. K., Carmody, J., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S. M., Gard, T., & Lazar, S. W. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain grey matter density. Psychiatry research: neuroimaging, 191(1), 36-43.
