Birdwatching is more than just a lovely way to pass the time. Being an expert birder changes your brain in ways that could help to slow age-related cognitive decline, research in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests.
Can you tell a fieldfare from a redwing, or a dunlin from a knot? If the answer is yes, you have probably devoted time and energy into learning your craft. Neuroscientists already knew that acquiring new skills changes the brain. Learning a new sport or language, for example, leads to subtle alterations in the brain’s activity and structure.
To find out if birding shapes the brain, the aptly named Erik Wing from Canada’s York University, performed brain scans on people as they tried to identify different birds. The participants came from different local birdwatching and outdoor clubs, but 29 were expert birders and 29 were novices. The two groups were similar in age, gender and education.
First, they saw an image of a bird. Then they had to identify the same bird from a panel of similar-looking species. They had 72 attempts at identifying 18 different species, including six local and 12 non-local ones.
As expected, experts were better than novices at identifying the birds, especially those from their local patch. This tallied with increased activity in three brain regions, known to be involved in visual processing, attention and working memory (which helps us to hold and manipulate information over short time periods). The same three areas were also structurally denser and more complex.
All in all, this suggests that the process of learning to identify birds and then practising the skill over time, leads to changes in the brain. But there was more.
As we get older, the structural complexity and organisation of our brains start to diminish. This trend could be seen in both expert and novice birdwatchers, but it was less pronounced in the experts. “This suggests a potential attenuation of age-related decline,” Wing and colleagues say. Or, in other words, “acquiring skills from birding could be beneficial for cognition as people age.”
The study chimes with the idea that mentally demanding tasks can help to build cognitive reserve, the brain’s ability to keep functioning well despite ageing or damage. It also adds to the growing list of reasons to give birding a go. Previous studies have shown that the hobby helps to boost mood, reduce anxiety an increase well-being, so what are you waiting for. Grab your binoculars and get out there!
Top image: Nitat Termmee/Getty Images
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