Mountain biking skills practice can mitigate age-related cognitive decline. However...

The sweet spot is likely different from what you think.

Two-minute video introduction:

Ever since I started mountain biking in 2011, I’ve considered myself a middle-aged geezer—not truly old because ‘old’ is a decade beyond whatever I happen to be. Hah.

Nonetheless, I’m old enough that I pay attention to the literature (Mayo Clinic article here) about garden-variety cognitive decline (“the expected decline in memory and thinking that happens with age”), which is different than mild cognitive impairment (“the stage between the expected decline in memory and thinking that happens with age and the more serious decline of dementia.”)

My examples of age-related cognitive decline: When I have coffee with my geezerly buddies, and someone can’t think of a word or a name, the memory lapse initially seems to spread to everyone (like yawning). Then, it becomes a competition to see whose brain can trigger the memory first. At home, my wife Robbie and I mock each other when one of us can’t find our glasses and the other points to them on our heads.

Those examples are no reason to worry. Significantly since “… not all thinking abilities decline with age. In fact, vocabulary, reading and verbal reasoning remain unchanged or even improve during the aging process.” Source here.

But I was nonetheless intrigued when I noticed a July Substack post by neurologist

Josh Turknett, MD

about a new episode of his Better Brain Fitness podcast with Dr. Tommy Wood titled How Much Skill Is Enough To Prevent Cognitive Decline?

How Much Skill Is Enough To Prevent Cognitive Decline?

I then remembered that I bought his book, The Laws of Brainjo, The Art & Science Of Molding A Musical Mind, a couple of years ago.

On his page that summarizes the science behind the book, he writes:

A large and growing body of evidence indicates that the growth, repair, and restoration of brain tissue is directly coupled to the demands placed upon them. And this phenomenon of “demand coupling” appears to be a major driver, if not THE major driver, of age-related cognitive decline and dementia (including the major form of Alzheimer’s disease).

According to this model, brains don’t tend to deteriorate as we get older because of “aging” but because our adult lives become increasingly less cognitively challenging over time, especially when compared to the cognitive demands of early life. Thus, increasing the amount of cognitive challenge can not only protect the brain from deterioration over time, but can restore it to a more youthful state and function. We refer to this phenomenon as Demand-Driven Restoration and Enhancement.

My current takeaways, subject to revision

• Stimulating brain plasticity (its ability to change physical structure due to learning) mitigates age-related cognitive decline.

• The best way to improve your brain’s plasticity is by stressing it via cognitive demand. See Turknett’s research paper: Demand Coupling Drives Neurodegeneration: A Model of Age-Related Cognitive Decline and Dementia

• Cognitive demand is at its peak when you’re early in the learning acquisition phase. It’s when you get the most synaptic plasticity and benefit for brain tissue. (It’s helpful to remember this when you feel like a complete klutz at a new skill. “AAARRRGGGHHH! I can’t do a manual front-wheel lift more than an inch. But I’m so glad my brain loves this!”)

• Maintaining a skill generally provides low cognitive demand. Learning to ride a bike or drive a car is very challenging. After that, automaticity gradually takes over, and cognitive demand declines.

• Working for minor, incremental improvements at a more advanced stage of a skill may do little to stimulate cognitive demand. Examples for me include trying to improve my rockover/logover/ledge height or my tabletop jumping height using the same techniques. Likewise, trying to add some distance to my slow fakies when it would be much more challenging to learn fast fakies because the technique is completely different.

• Trying to learn multiple new skills at the same time stimulates cognitive demand. It’s likely not an effective way to get good at those skills beyond the basics, but your brain will love it. So I’m considering trying to learn fast fakies and pedal kicks this winter, both completely new to me.

• The more you take on learning new and complex things, the better you get at learning new and complex things. It’s called metaplasticity. Watch Youtuber Mike Boyd, “the guy that learns things,” for inspiration.

• Learning a new physical skill that also requires strength, balance, agility, flexibility, and stamina while in an outdoor and social environment touches all aspects of cognitive demand. For example, a mountain bike group ride involving the sessioning of a new skill on challenging obstacles or terrain would be the crème de la crème.

• Deploying the art of #reflection (that tag links to four posts) adds to the cognitive demand of a practice session.

Danger can be helpful

I mentioned the element of danger in the intro video. Steven Kotler published a new book, Gnar Country: Growing Old, Staying Rad, earlier this year. He contends that the perceived or actual risk in learning an extreme sport (for him, park skiing) is a great way to stimulate cognitive demand. His rationale: “Somewhere along the way, we need to counteract the rising risk aversion and general fragility that accompany aging.”

I’m inclined to agree, especially after I put this question to Claude.ai, a ChatGPT competitor:

How much does perceived risk or actual risk provide a helpful cognitive demand stimulus for the brain?

Claude responded. Footnote here¹

Me: “Nicely done, Claude.”

As for Claude’s point #2, where (he?) wrote, “Regulating our fear/worry response in the face of risks involves significant cognitive control and plasticity,” I wrote here a couple of weeks ago that it matters if the stress associated with the danger is handled with a positive mindset or not.

I tore a rotator cuff several years ago when I mistimed my front wheel lift to get over a big boulder with a tricky launch area (crash not captured in that video). It nearly happened again this summer (crash depicted).

As with any serious injury, it’s stressful to ‘get back on the horse that threw you.’ Thus far, I’ve got a positive mindset about the danger of reinjuring a shoulder while trying to get better at bigger obstacles. I’m focused on changing my technique while practicing on slightly safer obstacles. The danger is still there, but I’m in the sweet spot that Claude mentioned above. My practice boulder has a low, rounded side that’s lower-risk for me, using either a classic front-wheel lift, manual front-wheel lift, or a standing 3/4 pedal stroke to initiate.

Earlier this month, I seemed to progress on my ‘upright problem’ over that boulder I pointed to in the intro video. See this 7-second video:

A week later, that progress disappeared, and I regressed to my usual form, described in this post over a year ago. This regression is an excellent example of ‘so far’ but ‘not yet.’

However, after writing this post, I’m happy that the cognitive demand of my slightly dangerous rockover practice benefits my brain despite my lack of significant progress.

1

Claude AI feedback:

Perceived and actual risk can potentially provide helpful cognitive demand and stimulation for the brain in a few key ways:

1. Risk assessment and mitigation requires complex executive functioning, drawing on skills like analysis, judgment, decision making, and planning. Having to actively evaluate and manage risk keeps these higher cognitive skills sharp.

2. Dealing with uncertainty and potential threats engages emotion regulation systems. Regulating our fear/worry response in the face of risks involves significant cognitive control and plasticity.

3. Being in risky situations triggers heightened arousal and focus - known to aid memory, motivation, and alertness. This primes us for learning and growth.

However, there are some caveats here as well:

- If the perceived risk vastly exceeds actual risks, it can be cognitively taxing in a counterproductive way, triggering excessive worry and anxiety. So some calibration is needed.

- Extreme risks that push us beyond our coping thresholds can be cognitively overwhelming and shut down executive functioning. So again, dosage and self-awareness matters.

- Growth occurs when we are stretching ourselves but still have the resources and support to manage the risks and challenges. Too much risk without room to expand capacities may not be optimally stimulating.

So in the right doses, perceived and actual risks can provide a potent stimulus for cognitive development and brain health. But there are optimal levels where growth is best supported - too little risk and we become complacent, too much and we become overwhelmed. Finding this sweet spot that induces growth is the goal.