Skiing, Sudoku, and a story that went around the world

What do skiing and Sudoku have in common?

Apart from being notoriously tricky for beginners, the two pursuits are now linked by an analogy used by scientists to explain a landmark study that has overturned conventional wisdom regarding the benefits of problem-solving in preventing mental decline.

For decades, it was widely accepted that keeping your brain active with hobbies like brain training, crossword puzzles and Sudoku, are key to preventing mental decline in later life.

However, a study led by Roger Staff, Honorary Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and Head of Nuclear Imaging for NHS Grampian, found that regularly engaging in problem- solving activities does not prevent mental decline as we age.

Not that we should throw away the chessboard just yet.  As with all the best puzzles, it’s not quite as black and white as it seems – and that’s where skiing comes in, as Roger explains.

“The analogy we use – the skiing analogy – is that these types of endeavours, like crosswords and brain training take you further up the ‘cognitive mountain'."

"When you go down the slope in later life, the slope will be the same, but if you have developed cognitive resilience throughout your life, you just start from a point higher up the mountain.”

When published in the British Medical Journal, Roger’s study became national and international news, but the roots of his research lie very close to home. 

While previous studies had suggested that a range of activities - puzzles, playing an instrument, reading from an early age - could help reduce the risk of dementia, a lack of data regarding mental ability at childhood created an incomplete picture.

Luckily, researchers at Aberdeen have access to what Roger describes as a “gold mine” of data, which allowed his team to examine the association between intellectual engagement at an early age and mental ability in later life.

“Aberdeen is unique in that we have access to an extensive wealth of data that has been gathered here since the 1920s,” he explained.  “The Birth Cohort has been collecting data on babies born in Aberdeen in 1921, 1936 and throughout the 1950s," he explained.

“This is a statistician’s gold mine and means we can use it to try to answer all manner of questions about ageing and development.  In this case we used it to find if encouraging older adults to participate in brain training exercises would help prevent decline.

Our results suggest that these types of intervention are of little value, but our study was not interventional, only observational.  As our skiing analogy makes clear there is still value in being mentally engaged over a lifetime and if you enjoy these activities, why stop!”

Originally from London, Roger came to Aberdeen via the University of East Anglia in 1988, and was initially only meant to stay in the Granite City for six months. However, working under the pioneers who created the world’s first MRI scanner was too good an opportunity to pass up, and his stay became permanent.