Dr. Michelle Carlson

Volunteers boosted their brain performance after working with children in the Experience Corps program, according to a study featured in today’s New York Times.

The small study, which was recently published in The Journal of Gerontology, tested eight female volunteers before and after they mentored children in Baltimore public schools. They are part of a network of 2,000 Experience Corps volunteers who are mentoring 20,000 students in 22 cities across the United States.

The women in the study had an average age of 67 and were deemed at risk for cognitive impairment because of their low incomes and education levels and poor scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination. After completing 32 hours of training with Experience Corps and volunteering an average of 15 hours per week for six months in classrooms, their cognitive tests improved 40 percent.

Johns Hopkins neuropsychologist Michelle Carlson, leader of the study, told The New York Times that the women also showed greater brain activity in MRI scans. “They showed immediate and measurable positive changes,” she noted.

The findings back up the “use it or lose it” advice of doctors who advise older individuals to continue stretching their minds and their bodies. Dr. Carlson said the study shows that “our bodies are meant to move. And our brains are built for novelty.”