A recent study to find out the effect on the brain of surfing the web discovered that it improves brain function in middle-aged and older adults. The test was carried out by Dr Gary Small, professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour at UCLA, and his research team. They used a group of people, admittedly small, ranging from 55 to 76 years old, half of which had had previous Internet experience. While the subjects read books and did assignments on the web, the team monitored their brains and found that both activities increased the blood flow to the parts of the brain that control language, reading, memory and visual abilities.

However, surfing the Internet also boosted activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate cortex parts of the brain. With the people who had already had Internet experience, the activity was twice as pronounced. While you’re searching for information online, you’re constantly making decisions about where to click to get to the next stage. As Professor Small explained: “internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function”.

The results bear out the theory that our brains continue to learn as we grow older. We don’t have to accept losing brain function as we grow older, but we must be aware of how to keep the brain stimulated. Studies have shown that keeping the mind engaged, even with crosswords or sudoku puzzles, can improve brain health and preserve cognitive abilities.

If you have never been online, or don’t have a computer, you can probably find one at your local library or there may be an Internet café nearby where you can ask for help to use the web. Although our puzzles can be solved by using dictionaries and encyclopedias, our puzzlers often search for the answers to the more elusive clues online, although they have to be careful because there are many misspellings online as well!

Happy Surfing!