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Study of the brain has been all the rage for the last 25 years. I have not kept up with every twist and turn of the developing work, though I am still waiting for someone to try to give a convincing explanation to me for why I can learn massive amounts of new material much quicker and in more depth at age 57 than at age 22, why I can link it together with other information much more quickly, and why my brain seeks more and more stimulation and information than it ever did previously. Even those who believe in the fairly new theory of neurogenesis (new from the perspective of its being accepted by mainstream neurologists) generally don't believe that the brain absorbs and retains more information at an older age than a younger one. So, ultimately, I am looking for someone to try to tell me why my brain has been, at least for the past five years, a sort of "super brain." I will give my explanation for the phenomenon here...

A Word on Neurons and the Theory of the Brain

Until the last decade or so, most neurologists likened the human brain to a computer. The system was "hard-wired" to do a lot of functions and, after a while, it would gradually turn off its circuits and stop running. It was a rather bleak perspective on life, of course, but it was the regnant theory. Fred Gage, now of the Salk Institute of San Diego, argued persuasively in 1998 that the brains of adult mice regenerate themselves well into adulthood. That is, the brain of these mice can create new neurons and not simply rely on the ones that have been around for years. Then, in the last few years, scholars have tried to show that the brain of mature adults can sort of "trade hemispheres" in sharing information, so that, to use a colorful metaphor, mature adults can "lift" the barbell with two hands while younger people can do it with "one."

But even though these two points tend to give the impression that the "middle-aged" brain can still function well, the studies (and the articles in the Time special) all carry with it the notion that the middle-aged brain is one in decline. It bases this on neural creation--which is done most prolifically in younger children. They are the fair-haired children of learning, even though the magazine tries to argue for the fact that adults can learn too. Thanks. For example, on p. 58 Jeffrey Kluger says,

"Far from slowly powering down, the brain begins bringing new cognitive systems online and cross-indexing existing ones in ways it never did before [please tell me about this one...] You may not be able to pack as much raw data into your memory as you could when you were in college, and your short-term memory may not be what it was..."

So, with one hand the author giveth, and with the other he taketh away. We being to "cross-index" in older age, but we can't "pack as much raw data" into memory and our "short term" memory may not be what it was. Wrong. My experience of living in the past five years, corroborated by several friends and the scope of my literary output, is that I am packing much more raw data into my mind than ever before. In addition, both short-term and long-term memory have been enhanced. Whereas the prejudices of last generation were that the brain can't "regenerate" itself, those of this generation of neuroscientists may be that older people lack the "raw memory power," whatever that is, of their youth.

A Theory of My Brain

I may be "cross-indexing" better than ever before, and I may be generating new neurons in the brain, but I think what is really happening is a combination of wise decisions made in life and the ability to blow new life into 'pruned' or what might be thought to be "dead" neurons. That is, I think that the vast array of my intellectual activities, and the precision in which I operate in all of them, is actually not simply the product or result of neurogenesis, but is the generator of energy that revivifies synapeses and neuronal connections. Thus, I see my mental efforts as a kind of neural stent--they "blow up" long neglected neural pathways and make the connections so much faster and more certain.

Let me list three things that contribute, I believe, to my intense experience of knowledge mastery and recall in the last five years. One has to do with habits, one with diet/exercise, and one with study.

The Habit

The principal habit change in my life over the past five years is the removal of all time drains or clutter from my life. That is, I have chosen to live a stress-free life. Something deep inside me 'told' me that in order to function at my maximal level, I needed to have a fully calm life. So, I don't commute, and I have chosen to live on very little and to work from my home. I keep a small network of friends. I have a routine which "works" for me. I travel a great deal. I put all my mental energy into learning. Of course "life happens," and I want it to happen. I take care of kids' things (they are out of the house now); I have a girlfriend; I even chair a committee on an important public issue. But I realize, through all of this, that my task or path is to master knowledge and put it in a beautiful literary and oral form. Because that is the clear direction of my life, I take pains to get to that task every day, moving from my "plate" all things that stand in its way.

Exercise/Diet

I exercise, either at the gym or through a long, hard walk nearly every day. Indeed, up until about a year ago, I was pressing myself so hard on the aerobic machine that I would normally burn up to 900 calories in less than an hour. I try to eat healthy things; my girlfriend helps me considerably there. In fact, for most of those five years between 2004-2009, I had a mental "game" I played on the aerobic machine. The machine measures calories and hundredths of miles traversed. I took the sum of those every few seconds and combed through my mind for an event that happened in the history of the West that represented the sum of those numbers. For example, when I am at 200 calories, I have gone 1.16 miles. The sum for me is "316," and so I reviewed the Life of Constantine, the development of Christian theology (the growing rift between Athanasius and Arius) and life in the Late Roman Empire in my mind at that point. When I got to 800, I thought about Charlemagne...you get the picture.

Pursuing Vast New Areas

Central to my mental discipline is the mastery of loads of new data in a variety of fields. My current love is flowering plants and trees. I memorize the Latin names, with their meanings and often their histories, of as many plants/flowers/trees that There is a method to it, if you check my earlier essays. Before I did this I memorized most of Book I of Paradise Lost. Then, there have been other areas, generally historical eras, which have provided me lots of data to master. The point is that each day I am inspired to try to learn many more pieces of information and then store them in the deep recesses of memory. Then I connect pieces of information so that I can draw them out together and "make knowledge beautiful" (my translation of Proverbs 15:2). Each day leads to the desire to master new knowledge; each day I think of my brain as getting stronger, my argumentative and analytical skills deepened, my tolerance for sloppy expression and unfounded argument less. Hence my dissatisfaction with what the Time issue did with the adult brain.

My hope is that someone would try to study my brain, without trying to subject me to memory tests that they devise--I will learn what I want to learn, thank you. I believe, and I am not alone in this belief, that the "mapping" of brain scholarship for the next generation would be different than it is now..if someone took the chance to study--me.

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