Hi, this is Tracy Tejama Espinosa, and this is a video on use it or lose it. This is the core concept of neuroplasticity in the brain. Basically, the idea is that your brain is complex and when you use it, it's in great shape. But when you stop using it, when you stop learning, then the neural connections are lost. That's the core idea. So the focus of this video is to talk about different things that serve as protective factors to stop that natural cognitive decline in the brain. So everything really centers around neuroplasticity. So the idea is how to use it so as not to lose it. One of the main researchers in this area, Michael Mezrinich, has been really a great leader in not only doing specific research in the University of California in San Francisco, but also in suggesting different types of training that people can do to continually stretch their memory, stretch their attention capacity, stretch their ability to develop and rely on executive functioning. We talk about use it and we talk about lose it. We're really talking about building neuroconnections, creating these new and extra dendrites that lead off to different types of synapses versus the lack of use which would actually impede continual dendrite growth. So Mezrinich says, you know, the basic concept is simple. The brain changes physically, functionally, and chemically as you acquire an ability or skill set. But as you're doing that, you're actually creating these new connections in the brain. And what he suggests is that we start to go downhill pretty quickly by the third or fourth decade of life because basically, my theory is that we stop studying, you know, formally, we stop going to school. You stop going from a period of acquiring new information, making these new connections, and that you basically sort of go on automatic pilot. You use habituated behaviors that have been built up over the first few decades of your life, and that's all you use from there on out. So Mezrinich suggests that what would happen if we were more proactive in the later stages of life, if we continued to learn, if we continued to pay new attention to new information and to construct additional neural connections in the brain. So the basic advice returns this idea of stop being an automatic pilot and doing things always in the same way because they're comfortable. Get out of that comfort mode, stretch yourself a bit. And that area of discomfort is when you're actually learning something new, you'll actually grow and continue to keep your brain active. Michael Rava has some very complementary ideas to Mezrinich's and I'd like to share a video with you about this basic concept of use it or lose it. It may be the secret to successful aging, remaining physically and mentally active. Exercise has been universally beneficial.  They increase the number of new nerve cells that are being generated. Dr. Michael Robb is a geriatrician with Lee Memorial Health System. He focuses on memory disorders. New research shows combining physical and mental exercise helps maintain the brain, much more than doing either one exclusively.  Use it or lose it. When it comes to boosting your brain, some exercises work well for seniors. Tai Chi is one that works both mind and muscle. People call it moving meditation. One, it's tight alignment, balance, a tremendous amount of focus. People who practice Tai Chi believe it blends the best of both worlds. The exercise should also include movement, complexity and memory, which Tai Chi does. Staying fit for life. It's helping seniors live better, longer. That's what makes the 60 the new 40 or 80 the new 60. For Lee Memorial Health System, I'm Amy Osher. So, core idea I guess is pretty intuitive to most of us. We realize that staying active and healthy is really good. But the key idea is understanding the neuroplasticity behind this. The idea that your brain can continue to make new connections throughout the lifespan when it learns new things. Doing things, again, just sort of parenthetically, there was a mention there of doing Sudoku or crossword puzzles, things like that. Very interesting. Maybe Tai Chi is even slightly better because there's an additional steps there. Not only is it a cognitive understanding of the steps and the alignment, but there's also this physical balance of things. But even more so, we've talked a lot in this class about the importance of possible strengthening by learning a foreign language. So learning another language is actually even better than Sudoku crossword puzzles or even Tai Chi. So do consider that. Another element to consider is the types of cognitive exercises that we're doing. One of the things that Mezrenic really focuses on is that his particular games, looking at brain HQ and the positive science brain training that he works on, it's very important to understand that none of these brain trainings improves your intelligence. All of them improve some aspect of cognition. Now, cognition as a whole, the main ideas there are memory and attention. And you can have brain training that improves memory and or attention. You usually don't have a single thing that does both, right? So I want to share a video with you that summarizes some of these core concepts and offers specific advice about how to stave off cognitive decline. Hi, I'm Julie Anwasil and you're watching OTV, where we provide solutions for living. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about some of the proven ways we can stay sharp as we age. Our brains are made of billions of neurons which interact with each other to complete specific tasks. Singles are sent from one neuron to another along neural pathways. And these determine our thoughts, emotions, insights, and so much more. Each task relies on a different neural pathway. So the pathway for reading a book, for example, is different than the pathway for putting on our shirt. The more we use a pathway, the stronger the connection becomes. These neurons have the ability to physically change themselves when faced with new and difficult experiences. This ability is called neuroplasticity. As we are exposed to new areas, tasks, or information, or experiences, neural pathways are formed and existing ones are reshaped. This will continue throughout our entire lives as we learn. As we have experienced through practicing a musical instrument, memorizing our shopping list, or recalling a friend's phone number, if we consciously focus and train our brains in a certain area, they will become faster and more efficient at performing those tasks. So how can we use this knowledge to try and combat age-related cognitive decline? Here are a few ideas. First, the old adage is true. Use it or lose it. Like the atrophy you would see in your leg muscles if you stop walking, your brain will respond the same if you reduce your engagement in cognitive activities. Staying sharp requires you to find interesting or new things to do with your brain. Learn online banking, take a class, or a course. Play a challenging board game with a friend. Shop at a new grocery store. Take a different route to get home. All of these simple things will challenge your brain to keep its connections and networks firing on all cylinders. Second, while there are many forms of online cognitive training, the important thing to remember is that the best use of your brain is just doing things, anything. Stay active, be involved, and if you have extra time, you can consider spending it playing online games that are designed to challenge areas of your thinking, like attention, memory, or concentration. But just be warned that the skills you require from the game might not necessarily translate to you using your brain better or differently when doing other daily tasks. For example, if you score really high on a memory game, that does not mean you will be better able to remember your grocery list. Really, the best way to improve your completion of daily tasks is to just keep doing them. Third, you've heard this before and you'll hear it again. Exercise is good for more than just your muscles. A healthy lifestyle filled with regular physical activity helps provide oxygen to your brain, which in turn helps to improve cognition and slow the signs of aging. And yes, your diet also matters. How do you fuel the most important organ in your body? Research shows that a diet low in fat and cholesterol, filled with antioxidants from fresh fruits and vegetables, and omegas from fish and nuts can help fuel your brain and ward off issues later in life. And these diets are also great for your heart and reduce the risk of diabetes. Of course, sleep is important too. As people age, they tend to experience greater issues falling asleep and staying asleep. Yet lack of sleep is another important cause of poor cognition. Make sure you monitor your sleep patterns and habits and try to ensure you are well rested. Take a look at our other OTV video on sleep if you want some pointers. And what about medications? Many medications have side effects that can cause a cognitive fog. Understanding what these are and if there are alternatives is a good step in the direction of staying sharp and alert during the day. Lastly, stay social. Keeping an active social life in your senior years is very important for your overall health, including your brain. If you're looking for activities to engage in, check with your local library or senior center to find a group with activities you can join. Many of these are available during the day and are inexpensive or free. In the end, remember that each person, each environment requires a unique solution to any given problem. Seek the services of an occupational therapist if you have a functional problem to solve. Well, that concludes this episode of OTV. Remember, OT is no stuff. So why is all this important? General well-being is influenced by the state of your mind, of the state of your brain. And we know the older you get, the less active we tend to become physically as well as mentally. And this creates the perfect storm for a cognitive decline. However, we can put that off if we are able to insert more physical and mental activity into our lives. We realize throughout midlife, we should all expect to be pretty strong, you know, cognitively healthy. And then there's natural cognitive decline, which will kick in in later life. And the likelihood of dementia, major neurocognitive disorders increases with age. Well, it's very interesting about this particular article from the Swiss Medical Weekly, is that there's this idea that there are things we can do. There are risk and protective factors in our lives. There's ways that we can prevent cognitive decline. There are things you can do in young adulthood, midlife, and in later life that will increase the likelihood of well-being into later life. Some things that have come to light as clear risk factors, poor nutritional states, other medical conditions like diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea, these things can contribute to cognitive decline later in life. But other studies looking at socioeconomic factors or other toxins in the environment, as well as genetic predispositions for cognitive decline, have been studied for many, many years. And they generally sum up to look something like this. There's general increase in risk for cognitive decline and dementia if you have traumatic brain injury, midlife obesity, midlife hypertension, if you're smoking, diabetes, if you have a history of depression or sleep disturbances or hyperlipedema. But you also can have a decreased risk or protective factors in other things. For example, the number of years that you've had formal education is a protective factor. General physical activity and having a good diet or doing any of these cognitive training exercises to extend your working memory capacity or your attention. And having moderate alcohol consumption can actually be a protective factor, as is social engagement. All of these would decrease your risk for cognitive decline. One of the very interesting things to observe about a lot of these things is that aspects such as formal education and cognitive training, for example, as well as social engagement, very clearly related to increased white matter track, increasing new connections and evidence of neuroplasticity. But an additional factor that has recently come to light and is said by Kim and colleagues, shows that having a purpose in life protects against cognitive decline in older adults. So in their study, they looked at the same thing. They wanted to figure out if the gender or the race of an individual, the level of education or what kind of health status they were in or if they were employed or not, other medical conditions that they might have. They also looked at smoking and drinking, for example. But they also looked at things like, did your income or the number of siblings or the structure of your household have anything to do with your ability to stave off cognitive decline? In addition to these general demographic scores, they also ask them some other questions. For example, I enjoy making plans for the future and working to make them a reality, definitely a protective factor, right? But if you think my daily activities often seem trivial and unimportant to me, well, that's kind of a risk factor, right? Or I'm an active person in carrying out my plans that I set for myself, right? That's positive. Or I don't have a good sense of what it is I'm trying to accomplish in life or I sometimes feel as if I've done it all, there's nothing left to do, right? Kind of negative there, right? Or if you have directions, if you make plans, all of these things can be indicators of your sense of purpose in life. And Kim's work basically showed then this mental, this psychological aspect contributes to your neural physiological wellbeing, to staving off cognitive decline. So in summary, this Swiss medical weekly and also at this large international conference in Copenhagen tried to understand, well, what is cognitive reserve? How can we build up cognitive reserve so that you do not suffer from these natural effects of aging? And they summarize this as understanding the physical things you do to your body, exercise, nutrition, the level of education, having a social support system and positive affect in your life, participating in stimulating activities and novel experiences, things that are new and different in your life and even participating in cognitive training, rehearsing working memory, for example, will improve and serve as protective factors in your life. So that while the onset of dementia can occur at any time, but most likely in late mid-life until later life, and the average person will be able to stave off the threat of dementia until later life, those people with protective factors have a better probability of not suffering from cognitive decline because they have high cognitive reserve and high cognitive reserve has to do with taking steps in this direction, incorporating these things into your life, continually using your brain so that you don't lose those neural connections. So bottom line recommendation is definitely keep active, keep learning new things, keep connecting different things. It doesn't matter how old you are that you can always continue to learn. But the key idea is to get out of your comfort zone, to do things that are more challenging to you, which really changes our mindset about old age, right? We used to think, okay, well, you're older now, go ahead and relax, chill out, do whatever you feel like doing. Well, the main idea here is to not allow yourself to become too comfortable. Yeah, go and travel, but guess what?  Go back and learn something that you had always wanted to, but had not had the time for before. So once again, this big idea is use it so as not to lose it. The big idea is to maintain the levels of neuroplastic connectivity that you've created in your brain, but also to enhance it with new learning. The core physiological process is that this white matter track built up over years of learning can deteriorate with age. But there's important steps you can take to proactively stave off this natural decline. And with that, we'll end here, use it or lose it. I'm looking forward to your questions when we meet up. Thanks.


Okay, we're back here inside theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, my co-host for this segment is Stu Miniman, wikibon.org, and we have returning CUBE alumni, Ben Kaps. Welcome back to theCUBE, diversity limited. You're flying back and forth in New Zealand. All these shows, you're in the power circuit. Yeah, kind of, the way I look at it, I've got the best of both worlds. I live in paradise and I get to work in this industry. And so, I was, interesting, we follow you around, because we bump into each other all the time with theCUBE and we're just at OpenStack, and now we're here at EMC World, two different worlds colliding on the same collision course, all going to, essentially, a software-led, open-source-based software, cloud, small bowl, big data, trust, I'll throw a trust in there, because that's EMC's new slogan for the week. Yeah, totally, collision course. Some would suggest that there's a train wreck going on, and that train wreck's being caused by some new vendors on the tracks, but either way, there's some big stuff happening. So, compare and contrast OpenStack, what's going on here and there. I'll see, the commonalities are cloud. Enterprise grade, like I want enterprise cloud. Sure, I mean, what's your take? You know, fundamentally, the question is, can legacy slash traditional vendors change what they do? Vendors that are used to selling big ticket stuff, recurring revenue in terms of licensing and maintenance, can they change the way they work, the way they act to live in a world that fundamentally is different? You know, the whole move to services, the whole move to software to find everything, really challenges kind of the structures of traditional organizations with their sales structures and things like that. So, there's some big stuff happening and we're seeing a real paradigm shift. Ben, can I just want to follow up on that question if I could, you know, one of the biggest challenges is, you know, that transition of applications, kind of the traditional applications, living in a Microsoft centric world, living in VMware versus the more modern scale out, hyper scale environment. You know, what are you seeing in the marketplace? Are customers moving there? Are they, you know, kicking and screaming? You know, what's your take? So, totally, it's really polarized and on the one hand, you have the, you know, cloud evangelists that say everything's moving to the cloud, everything's changing, all applications are becoming nimble and agile and it's all changing. Then you've got, on the other hand, you've got those that are very traditional, say nothing's going to the cloud. The reality is much more nuanced than that. The fact of the matter is that traditional applications primarily are staying where they are because why would you reinvent something that, you know, that works where it is? And that new, you know, new applications are being built in a more sort of agile, cloudy sort of a way. So, more and more, the future is very heterogeneous, not just in terms of a hypervisor or infrastructure, it's heterogeneous in terms of the way it looks. And that's a real challenge for organizations. Yeah, so speaking in some of those cloud evangelists, there was some news that hit the wire this morning. Dell made an acquisition of some folks we know well from in Stratus. So first of all, congratulations to both the Dell and Stratus people. So, how's that fit? Why Dell? And what does that mean for Dell's cloud going forward? Sure, so I'd say that, first I'd like to say, congratulations to those guys. The guys in Stratus have been, you know, friends of the cloud for a long time. They are absolutely thought leaders and they really deserve an exit. You know, George Reese is a fantastic guy and, you know, personally I'm really proud of them and happy for them. What does it mean for Dell? You know, clearly Dell's world is changing. It's no longer a hardware business and in the future will be less and less so and it's moving more towards software. You know, as you move towards a software world, you have to recognize and acknowledge the fact that your customers are going to be using lots and lots of different kit and the best way to deliver upon that is to both provide broad sort of platforms, broad fabrics that cover a lot of different use cases, a lot of different scenarios that your customers will have. And I think that's what Stratus does for them. You know, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what kit you use, it doesn't matter what cloud operating system you use, it doesn't matter what stack you use and Stratus straddles all of that and so it's a really smart play. You know, Dell's not completely out of the woods yet. Clearly it's a very challenging time to be a traditional vendor and we've seen obviously Dell's trying to go private and this morning BMC announced that they've gone private. You're seeing some big, big organizations fundamentally change what they do but you know, we'll see whether they survive. Let's talk about the cloud migration. So we just had Service Mesh on and they're talking a great message and they picked up on the radar when Sean Douglas went over there from EMC Ventures, which got our attention and you got here, you got two founders, self-funded who essentially made a bet. They basically made a bet that web services and service-oriented architectures would be the future. I mean, if you're in the industry in 2001, that's not, you know, it's pretty obvious but it just never progressed. You saw Vishal Sikha made that bet early on with SAP and again, it took like five years we slogged through to the point where you had some infrastructure so I want to get your take on that. I mean, obviously, I mean, it's not 100% mathable back to 2001, it's changed a lot. Some things have grown. What do you think about that vision and their product, their offering, the team and what their value proposition is? So I think fundamentally there's some stuff going on and that is that those of us that spend all our time looking at this world, kind of sometimes forget just how long it takes for change to happen. And so, you know, I'm actually really sympathetic and empathetic, I guess, to the traditional vendors who hear us advocates and evangelists bash on about how the world's changing super fast and yet they're sitting there day in, day out talking to large enterprise customers whose world isn't changing particularly fast and so they need to kind of temper... The shiny new toy, as they say, right? It's hard to roll out. They need to temper their message to not scare off traditional customers and so I think that's the interesting kind of combination of interesting balancing act that they need to face and I think that it's very easy for those of us here to kind of criticize these traditional guys and say that they're not moving fast enough, they're not sufficiently agile, they're not doing what they need to do to survive in this new world, but there is a hell of a lot of money being spent in the old world and there will continue to be a hell of a lot of money spent in the old world and so I'm not writing off any of that. Well, Eric from Service Match basically said, hey, it's legacy. You can't ignore it and the application mindset is got to go cloud and know who's thinking about all the nuances around compliance. Does it? I mean, like shadow IT is great and all, but hey, no one's endorsing it. They're letting it go for a little while but I mean. Sure, because at the end of the day, there's a lot of sort of critical applications still running on cranky old mainframes. You know, the fact of the matter is they're going to continue to do so for a long time and so the future is more and more kind of going to be very heterogeneous and the key opportunity or the key requirement is to balance those two worlds. You do a lot of work like Wikibon. You have a boutique research firm. You talk to a lot of upstarts and startups as well as the big companies and give them a lot of advice. We know because you sent out some of our way to do some SiliconANGLE interviews and we've talked to a bunch of them and it's great, but I want to get your perspective. As you dance between the lenses that you look through, looking through and also you have a global perspective, right? So adding that to the mix. Startups and the big companies, what are you seeing? What's the big trends that are on your radar right now that you're saying, hey, you know, this is for tracking this is still early, but it's going to be something that we're going to water ski behind for a while. So clearly as is always the case in technology, there's all the buzzwords and clearly every time that big vendors, big data, social analytics, yada yada, a kitten somewhere dies or at least a seen kitten somewhere die, hopefully. But at the end of the day, that stuff is important and clearly big data is an way overused term but fundamentally there is a deluge of information there and we need to work out how to take advantage and make insights from that data actionable. So that stuff is happening, but at the same time we're seeing this amazing emergence of startups that are doing incredible stuff and we need to see some rationalization and consolidation. It's just too crazy. Everyone is doing everything. The startup space is just crazy. We are in another, you know, I wouldn't say we're in another bubble, but I would say that there's very much a lot of enterprise fluffiness going on. And so I'm thinking that I don't think there's going to be a bubble bursting, but I think we're going to see some rationalization and consolidation as well. Well, bubble behavior is an indicator of investment, right? So frothyness means, and we've been covering the cues, the million wasn't sexy. So clearly there is investment in IT. I mean, and cloud. So it's not like they're cutting to the bone. They're trying to figure it out. Yeah, they're trying to figure it out. I mean, unfortunately it doesn't help that we have CEOs and high-level execs from large vendors standing up on stage and saying, literally, we will help you leverage the social analytic, big data, cloud ecosystem opportunity. Bingo. What does that actually mean? You know, it's BS, and at the end of the day, yes. Some of these vendors have some really good solutions to help harness big data, but simply putting a big data name on top of an existing solution doesn't all of a sudden make it big data. And you know, the idealistic part of me would like that to be resolved. Still chime in. Yeah, so Ben, I want to follow up with a question on this. But yeah, I totally agree. I think we've seen customers that are adopting big data, and we've been really trying to talk about some of the use cases and proof points of customers doing it. So Jeff Kelly, our lead big data guy, has been laying out some of the pieces. One of the kind of the next kind of steps that we've been kind of tracking and like to get your input on is kind of the internet of things or the industrial, you know, internet. Kind of as the next phase, the machine to machine data for big data. What's your take on that? Will that be a real wave or? Sure, so I've been really excited lately to see what GE's doing. Yeah. And clearly GE just invested $100 million, which is not much money for them, but it's a reasonable amount of money on the scale of things into the Pivotal Ministry or Pivotal One. And so they're doing some amazing things around the internet of things. And so too is Bechtel with my friend Christian Riley, who's doing some incredible stuff, you know, putting sensors in wet concrete so they can kind of, you know, rather than having to take samples, they can actually sense what the concrete's doing in a massive industrial project. You know, the internet of things is something that hasn't yet broken out into the sort of mainstream hype. And clearly it eventually will, but it truly is incredible. You know, when you have, and I've seen some estimates recently that say that, you know, in a year or two there's going to be 20 billion connected devices, when you start having that and you start to kind of mix that with some sort of analytics and harness that aggregate data, that's incredible. You see some amazing things coming then. Okay, so final prediction, EMC World, what's the core message going to be coming out of this show? What's your take on this? So, you know, I'm sitting inside the EMC events, so far from me to criticize EMC because they'd probably shoot me. We are in Vegas after all. I didn't say criticize EMC, I said, what did you think the key message is going to be? Yeah, sure, but go ahead, feel free. I think the key message- This is the cube, it's a free zone to say whatever you want. I mean, at the end of the day, they are trying, you know, I would argue that they are trying to slow innovation because innovation threatens them. And so they are trying to create a message that ensures that customers move at a steady pace that doesn't outpace their ability to move. Whether or not they succeed, or whether customers get with the picture soon as an EMC can move, we'll wait to see. Well, we got three minutes, so I'll just trill back to some open stuff, and then I want to get Stu's perspective on what he sees. Well, I wanted to see if we can get Ben's opinion. The developer community, John, we've been talking about is, you know, a really hot place. EMC does not have a great tradition in the open space community, or with developers, which is kind of why Pivotal is pulling the pieces together. You know, who's doing a good job with developers, in your mind, from the big standpoint. Sure, so I mean, obviously Pivotal, you know, Dell was doing some really interesting stuff with developers. You know, they've obviously taken on Kote and they're doing a lot of stuff around the whole DevOps world. So, you know, I wouldn't write Dell off because they are really understanding that developers are the new kingmakers. Clearly IBM's doing a lot of work there. It's about building a vibrant ecosystem of developers and this bottom up approach towards transforming IT. Okay, so I want to ask you about OpenStack. So, OpenStack, obviously, in the research that we're doing and I've been poking at some CIOs in our network, they like OpenStack because it gives them a comfort, security blanket. It gives them a feeling that, hey, you know what? I don't have to go with Amazon, which could be the Roach Motel for me and they're real nervous. I'm not saying that, that's the case, but I'm just saying, that's the perception, right? So, we heard UBS basically saying, we're not going to put any data in the cloud, they're going to do hybrid, they're going to do some cool things. OpenStack gives that comfort, hey, it's layered, it's software based, it's open source. That gives it a lot of comfort to the enterprise guys because it's still early and they can tool it. What is your take on it? Obviously, cloud scaling, some say it's faster to roll out because it's already more viable, but OpenStack's got a better message for the enterprise. What's your take on that? So, it's early days for OpenStack. It's only been a couple of years and clearly there's a lot of tension with a lot of different vendors trying to do their own kind of versions of OpenStack. Having said that, I think when OpenStack matures, it is going to be incredibly compelling for those very reasons that you point out. I'm really excited by it. I think it's a great counter or a great foil to the risks of one vendor being AWS. I think two years down the track, we're going to have some amazing communities around OpenStack like we did with Linux. I love the comparisons of OpenStack versus Amazon and then even Pivotal with cloud foundries comparing themselves to AWS. I think that might be a paper tiger. Some are saying, including myself, that cloud foundry mostly competes with OpenStack versus Amazon. Would you agree with that or disagree with that? I mean, cloud foundry is very, it's an unknown quantity. Pass generally is an unknown quantity. So, I'm yet to really get a good idea of where the future is going to lie for pass. Platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, all happening, the cloud, trust and big data. CEMC's big themes. Ben Kepps here from New Zealand, diversity. Great job. Great to see you again. This is theCUBE, our flagship program. We'll be right back with our next guest after this short break.