Web Surfing Boosts Brain Activity

Posted 10/20/2009 at 8:31am | by Paul Lilly

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Does your significant other ever accuse you of spending too much time online? Next time it happens, just fire back that you're exercising your brain, thank you very much.

That may sound far fetched, but according to a study conducted by UCLA scientists, surfing the Internet, even for just a week, has a fairly significant impact on brain functions in middle-aged and older adults.

"We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function," said study author Dr. Gary Small.

The research team conducted the study with 24 volunteers between the ages of 55 and 78. Half of the partiipants were already daily Internet users, while the other half spent hardly any time online. All participants were given an initial functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan before and then another after the experiment.

In between brain scans, participants were instructed to perform Internet searches one hour a day for seven days over a two-week span. After doing so, the follow-up scans noted increased activity in regions of the brain controlling language, reading, memory, and visual abilities.

"The results suggest that searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults," said Teena D. Moody, senior research associate at the Semel Institute at UCLA.