Yes, that book is upside-down. David Bunnell believes reading inverted type helps keep his mind sharp.

By KATIE HAFNER

SAN FRANCISCO - When David Bunnell, a magazine publisher who lives in Berkeley, California, went to a Federal Express store to send a package a few years ago, he suddenly forgot an important piece of information.
“I couldn’t remember my address, said Mr. Bunnell, 60, with a measure of horror in his voice. “I knew where I lived, and I knew how to get there, but I didn’t know what the address was.
Mr. Bunnell is among tens of millions of baby boomers, who were born roughly between 1946 and 1964 and who are now encountering the signs, by turns amusing and disconcerting, that accompany the decline of the brain’s acuity: a good friend’s name suddenly vanishing from memory; a frantic search for eyeglasses only to find them atop the head; milk taken from the refrigerator then put away in a cupboard.
“It’s probably one of the most frightening aspects of the changes we undergo as we age, said Nancy Ceridwyn, director of educational initiatives at the American Society on Aging. “Our memories are who we are. And if we lose our memories we lose that groundedness of who we are.
At the same time, people are seizing on a growing body of evidence that suggests that brains contain more plasticity than previously thought, and many people are taking matters into their own hands, doing brain fitness exercises with the same intensity with which they approach their gym workouts.
“Most people when they turn 50 begin to look at forgetfulness with more seriousness, said Dr. Gene Cohen, the director of the Center for Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University.
“When you misplace your keys when you’re 25, you don’t pay any attention to it, he said. “But when you do the identical thing at 50 or older, you raise an eyebrow.
Dr. Cohen, who recently conducted a study of people born from 1946 to 1955, the first half of the baby boom, said he was struck by the number of respondents who believe they can do things on their own to enhance the vitality of their brains.
“There is a gradual growing awareness that challenging your brain can have positive effects, Dr. Cohen said. He said the plasticity of the brain is directly related to the production of new dendrites, the branched, tree-like neural projections that carry electrical signals through the brain. “Every time you challenge your brain it will actually modify the brain, he said. “We can indeed form new brain cells, despite a century of being told it’s impossible.
In pursuit of his own dendritic growth, Dr. Cohen plans to take up the piano again after years of not playing. He is also sketching out a science-fiction novel he hopes to write.
Dr. Cohen says that although he understands the fear of Alzheimer’s, many people are unduly anxious about it. “The bottom line question to ask is, Is your forgetfulness fundamentally interfering with how you function? said Dr. Cohen. “If it doesn’t fundamentally mess up your work or social life, it’s among the normal variants.
A number of products target the growing interest in the brain’s fitness.
Nintendo’s $19.99 Brain Age 2, a popular video game of simple math and memory exercises, is one form of brain exercise. Posit Science’s $395 computerbased “cognitive behavioral training exercises are another. MindFit, a $149 software-based program, combines cognitive assessment of more than a dozen different skills with a personalized training regimen based on that assessment. And for about $10 a month, worried boomers can subscribe to Web sites like Lumosity.
com and Happy-Neuron.
com, which offer a variety of cognitive training exercises.
Alvaro Fernandez runs a brain fitness and consulting company, SharpBrains, with a Web site focused on brain fitness research. He estimates that in 2007 the market in the United States for so-called neurosoftware was $225 million.
Mr. Fernandez pointed out that compared with, say, the physical fitness industry, which brings in $16 billion a year in health club memberships alone, the brain fitness software industry is still in its infancy. Yet it is growing at a 50 percent annual rate, he said, and he expects it to reach $2 billion by 2015.
New companies like Navigenics, 23and- Me and deCODE genetics are charging around $1,000 to test an individual’s DNA for various risk factors, including Alzheimer’s.
Mr. Bunnell, whose magazine, Eldr, is aimed at aging boomers, took the 23and- Me test and learned that his genetic risk is below average. Still, Mr. Bunnell is not sure he trusts the report, as one of his grandparents had dementia, and his mother may have had Alzheimer’s .
To keep embarrassment to a minimum, Mr. Bunnell now does regular brain calisthenics, largely avoiding expensive software in favor of simpler solutions. He works at memorizing the numbers that swirl around his daily life - like credit cards or phone numbers - and devises mnemonics for remembering people’s names.
“Smart people find new ways to exercise their brains that don’t involve buying software or taking expensive workshops, he said.