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Creative Hobbies Keep Brain Biologically Younger
6 Dec
Summary
- Creative activities like music and dance can make brains appear younger.
- Regular engagement in hobbies strengthens crucial brain networks.
- Even brief beginner training in video games showed benefits.
Creative pursuits, ranging from painting and music to strategy-based video games, have been found to keep the brain biologically younger. An extensive international research effort analyzed brain data from over 1,400 adults, revealing that individuals regularly engaged in creative hobbies exhibited brain patterns indicative of a younger biological age.
The study, published in Nature Communications, utilized advanced brain scans and machine-learning models to estimate brain age. Researchers observed that hobbies strengthen critical brain networks involved in coordination, attention, and problem-solving, which naturally decline with age. While consistent practice yielded the most significant results, even beginners who underwent a few weeks of strategy video game training showed improvements.
These findings suggest that creativity is a powerful factor in maintaining brain health, comparable to exercise and diet. Scientists advocate for integrating creative pastimes into educational and healthcare programs. Future studies aim to link these brain-age measures to tangible outcomes like memory, cognitive function, and disease risk, though researchers caution that more long-term data is needed.
