Google Your Way To A Smarter Brain

We may have an excuse for all our random Google searches like “do platypuses have nipples” or “define tenderoni”. A UCLA study claims that these searches may help stimulate parts of the brain that control decision making and reasoning.

In the study, 24 neurologically normal subjects between the ages of 55 to 76 were assigned two tasks: to read book-like text and perform web searches. At the same time, these folks were hooked up to MRIs to scan their brain activity.

To simulate real-world conditions, the experimenters told the subjects they would be assessed on their knowledge of the three topics they were learning about: the benefits of chocolate, planning a trip to the Galapagos, and how to buy a car.

To control the study, subjects weren’t really doing Google searches or flipping through books. Instead, they were presented fake pages. They would press one of three buttons on screen to do a search or one button to turn the page. Both acts affected the regions in the brain that control language, reading, memory, and vision. But the faux internet searching also lit up areas that control complex reasoning and decision making.

While it’s too early to say “a Google a day keeps the neurologist away”, this study may begin to open up new areas of research. This comes at a time when medical experts are predicting Alzheimer’s cases will quadruple by 2050, so new research is definitely welcome.

[San Francisco Chronicle]