A famous poet once wrote that hope is a thing with feathers. Well, new research may suggest that healthy aging is too.
Specifically, the research examined how expertise required for identifying birds aided in maintaining neuroplasticity, a key component to cognitive function that is known to decline with age.
Yet even when the “bird-identification expert”—what most people refer to as a “birdwatcher”—was overly grey among the feathers, they were assessed as possessing an increase in structural complexity across various regions of the brain that could aid the attenuation of age-related cognitive decline.
No one needs to undertake an MRI scan to understand that a successful birdwatching trip leaves one feeling awfully swell. This isn’t to say that birdwatching is some Aristotelian ‘Good,’ but the combination of time spent in nature and leveraging a variety of cognitive systems to successfully identify a bird through limited clues and cues seems to hold great promise as a way to support mental faculties like attention, visual perception, and visual recognition.
However, MRI scans were used in a recent study of birdwatchers, and found that these were exactly the faculties that showed more activity during birding, particularly when the participant was unclear which bird they were observing.
The lead author on the study was the aptly-named Erik Wing from the Baycrest Academy for Research and Education in Toronto, Canada. Wing’s next flight of fancy for his paper was to study brain organization—known to decline with age and is associated with compromised cognition.
Some expert birders’ brains showed better organization than those of novice birders who came along as the control group.
The BBC’s Becca Warner explored the topic further, and wrote for the British network that additional research suggests that birdwatching benefits amateurs as well, so long as they enjoy it.
A study of 388 birdwatchers in Poland found that those who considered the hobby important in their lives experienced a greater degree of “psychological restoration” from a birdwatching session than birdwatchers who were experts but not that enthusiastic about it.
JOY TO THE BIRDERS:
Along with suggesting that it’s never too late to start birdwatching, the research suggests that, like diet and exercise, someone who both values the hobby and becomes an expert is receiving double the benefits compared to someone who does just one.
Wing confided to Warner that he felt it is the curiosity of the birder and birdwatcher that plays the largest role in these potential cognitive benefits, as curiosity is linked with novelty, and novel objects and concepts require brain reorganization, thus keeping the organ flexible even in old age.
“I think there’s a lot of benefit to incorporating more novelty in our lives, in midlife and as we continue to age,” Wing said.
FLY This Great News Over To Your Friends Who Like A Good Birdwatching Trip…
