After last week’s presidential debate between the 78-year-old and 81-year-old candidates, and with at least one public call for cognitive testing by some who thought President Joe Biden looked “aging and frail,” much of the U.S. There is age in the brain.
but what Do What effect does age have on the brain? wealth Consult an aging expert to get a clearer picture.
Incredible cortical contraction
“The brain goes through many changes associated with aging, one of which is what we call the shrinkage of the brain’s outer layer, or cortex,” said Emily Rogalski, professor of neurology and director of the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Chicago. explain.
She explains that the cortex is like the bark of a tree, the layer where brain cells live.
“It’s very important to our thinking and communication,” she says. Its shrinkage tends to occur in areas associated with memory, and is often associated with changes in memory—and believe it or not, when memory is at its peak, we are Late 20s or early 30s.
As a result, attention and executive function skills are also easily affected. “All of these things are related to some degree because you need to pay attention to remember something,” Rogalski said. “Our cognitive functions don’t just exist on little islands of memory and attention, and they don’t interact. It’s a complex system.
Age-related memory loss is normal
According to a recent survey by the McKnight Brain Research Foundation, Patricia Boyle, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Rush University and a neuropsychologist at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, found that 87 percent Americans worry about experiencing age-related memory loss and decline.
“But what many people don’t know is that age-related memory loss is not always a sign of serious cognitive problems,” Boyle said. wealth. “Most people don’t understand that age-related memory loss, often associated with mild forgetfulness, is a normal part of the aging brain and is not necessarily a sign of serious memory problems.”
She says some signs of normal aging include:
- Occasionally make wrong decisions
- Missing monthly payment
- lose sense of time
- Can’t find the right word
- Things at home are lost
“As we age, it’s normal to see signs of cognitive aging, just as it’s normal to see physical signs of physical aging, such as slower movement or increased pain,” Boyle said.
Brain shrinkage does accelerate as you age
Brain volume continues to decrease with age, including in the frontal lobes and hippocampus (regions responsible for cognitive functions), and around age 60, the rate of atrophy increases.
“As we age, our risk for many diseases increases,” Rogalski explains. “If you consider the wear and tear and the increasing fragility of our bodies, it makes sense — and it’s true. On top, unlike hips or knees, there is no brain substitute.
Dr. John Rowe, professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, noted that aging can lead to one of two types of atypical cognitive loss: dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Age – Cognitive Impairment”. Relevant changes occur in 12 to 18 percent of people over 65,” he said. “What’s reflected in everyday life is that people become more forgetful, they lose things, they miss appointments and that can have an impact on your day-to-day functioning.” About 10 per cent of people develop it every year, he added for MCI.
Some seniors excel
Rogalski emphasizes that an important part of looking at aging is not just paying attention to things that go wrong, but also new opportunities. “The big challenge with aging is really the stigma associated with aging and the expectations we place on individuals as they age – there is no trajectory other than decline – and we take away activities and responsibilities that people can do.
That’s a problem at some new luxury assisted living facilities, which offer services ranging from room service to laundry folding, she said. “It turns out that a lot of the everyday activities we do, like washing the dishes or walking around, are actually really good at keeping our muscles strong.” Likewise, it’s important to keep your brain engaged and active, which can come in many forms. “It can come from staying socially connected. It can come from learning new things. But we want to think about exercising our brains and using our bodies, including thinking about how to practice our fine motor skills… If we take those things away and By doing it for us, we are not necessarily doing ourselves a service.
Still, Luo emphasized, “there is huge variability. We are seeing more and more older people performing at very high levels and falling into the category of super-elderly people.”
Enter Super Old Man…
Rogalski’s research is part of an ongoing multidisciplinary super-aging research program in which she is examining evidence from a biology, family history and lifestyle perspective to understand what makes some people appear to barely age, At least cognitively.
“What we’re seeing is that biologically speaking, super-old people seem to look different. Their brains actually look more like those of a 50- to 60-year-old than an 80-year-old.
“So they seemed to be resisting the thinning of the outer layer of the brain, or cortex, and when we measured it using very precise tools, we found that the brains of super-old people were actually not as thin relative to those of people aged 50 to 50. did not show any atrophy. In fact, a region of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which plays an important role in motivation, decision-making, emotion, and situational cues, was found to be larger in super-elderly adults than in those 50 to 50 years old. Thicker people aged 60. They also discovered large numbers of neurons called von Economo neurons, helping scientists build a “biological pathway” to understanding super-old people.
A few years ago, Luo told us wealthDuring this period, he ran a research network studying “successful aging” at Harvard University. In one study, he followed a group of 75-year-olds for six years, testing their physical and cognitive abilities over that period. “In the end, 25 percent of people don’t change, 50 percent get worse, and the other group is somewhere in the middle,” Luo said. He noted that those who did best, the super-aged, had certain Lifestyle characteristics, including not living single, educational attainment, and financial security.
It highlights that if you gathered a group of 80-year-olds today to assess their cognitive abilities, you would get mixed results: probably a couple with dementia, one or two super-agers, and other intermediaries. people in between. This is not only because people’s brains change at different rates, but also because of differences in lifestyle, genetics and other factors.
The bottom line, Rowe, who noted that he is 80 years old, said, “I don’t think we can talk about averages with any meaningful validity when we try to reduce averages to decisions about one person. I think We cannot attribute an average age of 80 years to one person.
