© Jose Raymond Thomas Devaraj
Surfing the Web can help slow the effects of age-related mental declines that can end in dementia by boosting the brain activity of the elderly, new research has found.
Using brain scans, a team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that using the Internet stimulated the mind more strongly than reading, with effects that continued long after an Internet session had ended, the Sunday Times of London reported.
'We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function,' Dr Gary Small, a professor of neuroscience at UCLA, told the newspaper.
Dr Small and his team worked with 24 men and women between the ages of 55 and 78. Half of them were regular users of the Internet, while the other half had little experience online.
The researchers used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, which determines the parts of the brain that are the most and least active based on changes in blood flow.
The subjects were initially asked to conduct a series of Internet searches while their brains were scanned.
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