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ByLisaM.Krieger lkrieger@mercurynews.com Quick:Findthefruit!Feed the fish! List a sequence of steps, in reverse! Your online test results aren't pass-fail. You aren't graded. But your scores give valuable snapshots of your mental flexibility and mem - ory, contributing to what UC San Francisco researchers hope will some day be a vast archive of information about brain health — and the first neuroscience project to use the Internet on such a scale to advance research. By volunteering — repeat - edly over time — partici- pants join a pool of research subjects in the new Brain Health Registry, opened April 1, for studies on brain diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, as well as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other neurological ailments. You won't learn your own scores; that disclosure could influence your future performance or trigger un - warranted "freak outs," said UCSF's Dr. Michael Weiner, founder of the registry and lead investigator of the Al - zheimer's Disease Neuroim- aging Initiative, the world's largest observational study of the disease. Rather, you will help speed up research by help - ing cut the time and cost of conducting clinical trials. "To accelerate research, studies have to be done more quickly, and efficiently," said Weiner. One-third of the cost of running trial studies is pa - tient recruitment — and many trials fail, or are de- layed, due to problems get- ting enough of the right vol- unteers. The traditional approach to finding participants is low- tech, such as posting notices on bulletin boards or buying ads in newspapers. And it's time-consuming to deter - mine if someone is even eli- gible to volunteer, then doc- ument their family and per- sonal medical history. Think clipboards, pens and paper. Frustrated by how much effort would be required to launch a giant Bay Area- based study in Alzheimer's prevention, "a light bulb went off in my mind," said Weiner. "Why not use the Inter - net as a way to enroll in tri- als," he said, "where volun- teers take a few minutes to take some online neuropsy- chological test to measure brain performance?" Hundreds of other re- searchers could share this pooled and updated data- base of patient information — with participants' iden- tities removed — saving the time and expense of new re- cruitment with every new clinical trial. "The large pool of data gathered by this registry can help the broader brain research community," said Maria Carrillo, vice presi - dent of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer's Association. "It's paving the way or better treatment op - tions for others," she said. The initial focus will be on the San Francisco Bay Area, and the goal is to re - cruit 100,000 people by the end of 2017. Nearly 2,000 people have already signed up during the registry's test phase. Volunteer Jackie Boberg, of Saratoga, called the fast- paced tests "a little nerve- racking," but enjoyed the challenge. "I want to help any scien - tific efforts," said Boberg, 62, an artist recently re- tired from high-tech sales and marketing at Adobe Systems Inc. "I am watch- ing a lot of my friends help with their parents and rela- tives who are suffering from Alzheimer's or other demen- tia, and see the toll it is takes (on) the entire family. I feel like it is just the tip of the ice- berg, as aging Baby Boomers come along." She cares less about her personal results than broader population-based findings. "It is not about me. It is more about being able to contribute," she said. "Any - thing I can do to help with science moving forward." Volunteers provide a brief personal overview — such as family history of demen - tia and health status — and take online neuropsychologi- cal tests designed by compa- nies Lumosity and Cogstate to evaluate memory, atten- tion and response times. Later tests will reveal in- formation about how volun- teers' brains are changing as they age. "We're seeking people with all kinds of problems — or are completely normal — to build this database," said Weiner. "It will open up the re - search world," he said. MentaL fitness Flexingourcollectivemindmuscles By amanda Mascarelli The Washington Post. When I picked up knit- ting needles for the first time about two years ago, I couldn't have imagined how vital the hobby would become to my well-being. Learning to knit was hard for me, but once I mastered it, the craft became addic - tive, in a good way: It calmed me. Crafters have long recog- nized the therapeutic value of activities such as knitting and crocheting. (A 2013 sur- vey of more than 3,500 knit- ters worldwide, for example, found that 81.5 percent of re- spondents rated themselves as feeling happier after knit- ting.) Mind-stimulating activi- ties such as these have been used by occupational thera- pists to alleviate symptoms of depression and to help improve motor functions in people with illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, says Sharon Gutman, an occupa - tional therapist at Columbia University in New York. In a 2007 review pa- per, Gutman and Victoria Schindler surveyed the sci- entific literature that ana- lyzes the neurological ba- sis for how hobbies and ac- tivities relate to health and well-being. They found that engaging in such activities as arts and crafts, music, meditation, home repairs and reading stimulates the mind, reduces the effects of stress-related diseases and slows cognitive decline. But researchers are be - ginning to understand the neurological basis for why these activities are good for the mind. In a 2012 study, Mayo Clinic professor of neurol- ogy and psychiatry Yonas Geda and colleagues stud- ied the effects of activities including knitting, quilting and playing games in 1,321 seniors, nearly 200 of whom had mild cognitive impair - ment, an intermediate stage between normal aging and dementia. The researchers found that those who en - gaged in crafting, computer activities, playing games and reading books were 30 to 50 percent less likely to have mild cognitive impairment than those who did not. Geda notes that activi - ties such as crafting may help build up "cognitive re- serves and the ability to buf- fer and withstand lots of as- sault by bad chemicals in the brain and bad proteins accu- mulating." He points to an- imal studies showing that mice and rats living in en- riched surroundings — such as with running wheels, toys and complex environments — are less likely than others to develop cognitive prob - lems such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease. One reason, Gutman says, is that these activi - ties engage several of the brain's lobes — the frontal lobe (which guides rewards processing, attention and planning), the parietal lobe (which handles sensory in - formation and spatial nav- igation), the occipital lobe (which processes visual in- formation),the temporallobe (which is involved in storing memories and interpreting language and meaning) and the cerebellum (which coor - dinates precision and timing of movement). Calling on all of these brain regions stimulates neural connections and keeps the connections work - ing quickly and efficiently, Gutman says. The more we use these connections as we age, "the more they seem to stay intact and preserve our brain's function and stave off illnesses such as dementia." So far, only a handful of studies have explored the therapeutic potential of crafting activities. In one study, 38 women hospital - ized for anorexia were given a questionnaire about their psychological state after be- ing taught to knit. After an average of one hour and 20 minutes of knit- ting a day for an average of three weeks, 74 percent of them reported less fear and preoccupation with their eat - ing disorder, the same per- centage reported that knit- ting had a calming effect, and just over half said knit- ting gave them a sense of pride, satisfaction and ac- complishment. neuroLogy Kn it ti ng ? Th er e ma y be m or e to c ra s t ha n bu sy wo rk iStock the Brain Health Registry at Uc San Francisco opened April 1, for studies on brain diseases and has turned the internet into a recruiting tool for trial subjects. Brain Health Registry aims to collect wide pool of subjects to aid in brain research www.redbluff.mercy.org/veincare GetaLeguponYour Health With the St.ElizabethCenter for Vein Care. 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