Why don’t we ever hear about the brain functions that IMPROVE with age? Yes, that’s right. Everything does NOT go downhill as we get older.
Some — and only some — aspects of brain function may get slower as we age, but other thinking skills actually improve. For example, vocabulary, reading and verbal reasoning get better with age. Older adults have larger vocabularies and a deeper understanding of different layers of meaning embedded within words.
On the other hand, a region of the brain called the hippocampus — which is our learning and memory warehouse — has been observed to shrink with age, while the fatty myelin sheath that wraps around nerve fibres can get thinner. This may lead to slower communication between brain cells, which means it can take more effort to remember new information or retrieve stored information. Unfortunately, this is what most people focus on.
But here are two fascinating facts. Firstly, regular physical exercise increases the size of our hippocampus and can counteract what is considered a feature of ‘normal’ ageing. It appears to be normal only if we’re sedentary.
Secondly, what we believe about our brain influences how our brain operates. People who do NOT have ingrained cultural beliefs about memory decline with age — such as mainland Chinese and the deaf community — don’t experience worsening memory as they get older! When scientists examined whether genetics might account for this, it turned out that genes had nothing to do with Chinese and deaf people having better memories than the average American and Australian senior citizen. It was due to their reverence for the wisdom and contribution of elders in their community.
Be careful what you think because you can think it into your reality!
Furthermore, the nerve fibres that extend out from neurons — called dendrites — acquire more branches as we get older, and this strengthens connections between distant brain regions. This means that as we age, we get better at:
- pattern recognition
- seeing the bigger picture and
- extrapolating broader implications from the information we’re given.
Simply put, as we age we get better at seeing the forest, if not quite as good at seeing the trees.
Researchers from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, tested over 700 men and women aged between 58 and 98, on three aspects of brain function:
- The speed at which they responded to incoming information
- Their capacity to shift attention
- Their ability to ignore distractions and focus on the task at hand.
After adjusting for sex, education and visual acuity, older age was associated with lower scores in the first parameter but BETTER performance in the second two brain functions. You can read the original paper here: Evidence that ageing yields improvements as well as declines across attention and executive functions. Veríssimo J, et al. Nat Hum Behav. 2021 Aug 19. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01169-7.
So instead of worrying about memory loss — which is more a self-fulfilling prophecy than a biological destiny — let’s enjoy our richer vocabulary and deeper insights.
Please share this Health-e-Byte with anyone who believes that things go downhill as we age.
Photo credit: I took this photo in a vogue Manhattan park called the High Line. The park was built over a railway relic and exhibits works of art such as the Old Tree by Pamela Rosenkranz. The tree’s bright red branches resemble the network of blood vessels and nerves that course through the human brain and body.
