Rome, February 7 (Reuters) - Culture is the best medicine for the brain. New data show in fact that to keep fit and healthy mind we must train it, by improving their level of education. A search for ' Saint Lucia Foundation IRCCS of Rome has documented the positive effect on the integrity of the study of the brain, both structurally and functionally, in particular the hippocampus, with the benefit of memory. The degree school education must be added the activities during their lifetime, and the type of work, mental commitment daily and recreational activities: it is the combination of these factors has a protective effect of our brain. The study, all Italian, has earned the cover of international magazine on neuro-images 'Human Brain Mapping' . Un'accreditata theory - that of neuronal reserve - has long maintained that an individual more educated and with a higher level of education, and more mentally engaged, you can create a kind of cognitive reserve that protects the brain from damage caused by processes associated with aging, as occurs in Alzheimer's disease. In other words, the training and the cultural level of the study make it possible to accumulate a 'heritage' mental largest (both from the point of view of brain structure than the content), which is then eroded more slowly by the phenomena linked to 'physiological and pathological brain aging. However, research undertaken in this area that so far had always been the limit to provide a rather crude measure of this reservoir of 'youth mental', usually limited to evaluate the entire brain volume. Furthermore, it was precisely localized the area where the protective process works.
Now the search for Saint Lucia Foundation, using the technique called magnetic resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), has finally helped to shed light on these points are still obscure. For the survey were recruited 150 healthy people aged between 18 and 65 years and was asked to perform a complex and innovative magnetic resonance imaging at high field (3 Tesla) that allows the measurement of fine structural changes brain tissue. One of the parameters that could be extracted by analyzing the images thus obtained is the mean diffusivity, a measure of the movement of water molecules in the brain that can be considered a quality index brain structure. The results revealed a correlation between this parameter and the years of schooling. People with a high educational level showed a more compact structure in the hippocampus. This area of \u200b\u200bthe brain, located in the medial temporal lobe, plays a key role in the processes of long-term memory and is one of the first structures to deteriorate during the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. "For the first time we were able to determine the location within the brain where a richer mental activity initiates protective mechanisms against neuro-degeneration," says Gianfranco Spalletta the psychiatrist who led the study. "Our work confirms clearly what is repeated in the scientific world for years to study and train the brain to stimulate the mind and keeps you young, "said Fabrizio Piras, psychologist and researcher." All comforts us - adds Carlo Caltagirone, a neurologist and psychiatrist - because allows us to have a realistic less nihilistic and not consider the inevitable cognitive decline, including in relation to events such as brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's dementia. As we have seen, training with studying the brain and the mind does not play a secondary role in the ability of natural resistance to aging and neuro-degenerative diseases. "
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