Super-aged super thinkers - Health & Wellbeing
Researchers are beginning to unravel the mystery on maintaining memory, thinking ability and language skills well into old age. 24 08 2009
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It's early days, but there are preliminary answers with some surprises. It's already known that people who survive well into their 80s have tended not to be fat, have normal blood pressure and not smoked. But the surprises were in the brains they've been able to study so far.
As we age, we accumulate in our brains things called plaques and tangles, which in excess are also features of Alzheimer's disease.
Well, super-aged thinkers seem to have fewer tangles, but they had the same or even more plaques than average 80-year-olds. And if there's any classic sign of dementia it's plaques. So why the same number or more in super aged, super thinkers?
The bottom line is the researchers don't know, but what they suspect is that these super thinkers have more plaque because they're better at mopping up the brain toxic protein called beta amyloid, which appears to destroy brain function.
Finding out how and why they're able to do this without damaging the brain should give some clues to dementia prevention and maybe even treatment.
For Reference
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URL: http://www.plosone.org/home.action
2008 Oct 2;3(10):e3329.
Title: Neurobiology of Ageing
Author: Leung E et al. Microglia activation mediates fibrillar amyloid-beta toxicity in the aged primate cortex.
URL: http://neurobiologyofaging.org/inpress
2009 Apr 4. [Epub ahead of print]
Title: New England Journal of Medicine
Author: Savva GM et al. Age, Neuropathology, and Dementia.
URL: http://content.nejm.org/
2009;360:2302-09
Title: New England Journal of Medicine
Author: Ewbank DC and Arnold SE Cool with Plaques and Tangles.
URL: http://content.nejm.org/
2009;360:2357
