Rejuvenating the Brain: Ageing with Cognitive Sparkle
Statistically, 1 in 3 girls born in 2011 can expect to live to 100.1 This probable longevity focuses our attention more and more on how we will be able to maintain a good quality of life in the latter 25-30 years of this elongated lifespan. When considering this, uppermost in people’s list of anxieties is the progressive loss of a functioning and creative brain. Since the incidence of dementia rises to 1 in 3 people by age 85, the fear has a stark statistical reality.
This loss of cognitive ability, especially in learning and memory, saps the sufferer’s ability to perform daily tasks and, more importantly, deprives them of the insight and awareness necessary to fully enjoy humour, love, beauty, music and memories of past, present and the anticipated future.
Yet while increasing age parallels the increasing incidence of dementia, are the two inextricably linked? Is there an inexorable decline in brain function and structure with age, one that can’t be prevented and certainly not reversed?
In my opinion, the answer to both questions is an unequivocal no!
Dogma vs Dementia
The study of the brain function and anatomy in very old people is beginning to provide the most cogent refutation of the above assumptions. In one notable study, the cognitive function of a 113-year-old woman was assessed and, subsequently upon her death at 115, the brain was carefully examined. Her cognitive ability was found to be superior to many 60 year olds, and when examined under the microscope her brain showed almost no evidence of accumulation of beta-amyloid or tau – the two molecules thought to trigger Alzheimer’s disease – and revealed only minor changes in the number
