Brain Awareness Week Reveals New Zealand’s Smarts

Brain Awareness Week Reveals New Zealand’s Smartest

Last week, Brain Awareness Week challenged the nation to ‘Grow a Bigger Brain in 7 days’ – pitting region against region, boys against girls and golden oldies versus temper-some teens and everyone in between – so who is the brainiest of them all?

New Zealanders grew a total of 18,420,200 brain cells throughout Brain Awareness Week by taking part in daily puzzles and quizzes to help make New Zealand a smarter place by working towards prevention of neurological diseases – all by keeping their brains active and engaged.

In ‘State of the Nation’, Otago may have dominated the tables throughout the week, but Manawatu came out on top as the brainiest region in New Zealand with Waikato coming in a close second, and Otago taking a knock back to third.

Proving politicians aren’t the brightest of sparks, Wellington came in at 5th, while Aucklanders gave a bit more nous to the ‘JAFA’ sentiment, falling way behind at number 11. The West Coast came in at the bottom of the table.

When it came to the battle of the sexes, the boys may physically have bigger sized brains, but it was all about the girl power with the lovely ladies of NZ growing over three times the number of brain cells – a huge 13,949,200 to their 4,473,100.

And what of the quick-witted youngins versus wisdom with age? The stats prove that there’s no need for a mid-life crisis when it comes to brain health, and that you can grow brain cells at any age, with the 60-somethings reigning top dog in the charts, followed by those in their 50s and 70s.

The Brain Week website received over 40,000 visitors and more than 300,000 page views, but it wasn’t just Kiwis looking to up their brain power with participants from over 71 countries and territories.

Prevention is always better than cure. Brain research increases our understanding of the brain and neuroscientists are constantly discovering that individuals can make a difference to their brain health. A good start is to simply catch up with a friend.

Finding ways to prevent or cure neurological disease is a primary goal of neuroscience research, and the Neurological Foundation is committed to help achieve this by funding neurological research in New Zealand.

ENDS

© Scoop Media