So? Is this a good or bad thing in your opinion? ...Bill!
--- In [email protected], Merle Lester <merlewiitpom@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Secrets of 'SuperAger' Brains: Elderly Super-Agers Have Brains That Look and
> Act Decades Younger Than Their Age
>
>
>
> Do super-agers exist? A new study has for the first time identified an elite
> group of
> elderly people age 80 and older whose memories are as sharp as people 20 to
> 30 years younger than them. (Credit: © Meddy Popcorn / Fotolia)
> ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2012) â" Researchers have long chronicled what goes
> wrong in the brains of
> older people with dementia. But Northwestern Medicine researcher Emily
> Rogalski wondered what goes right in the brains of the elderly who still have
> terrific memories. And, do those people -- call them cognitive
> SuperAgers -- even exist?
> Rogalski's new study has for the first time identified an elite group of
> elderly people age 80 and older whose memories are as sharp as
> people 20 to 30 years younger than them. And on 3-D MRI scans, the
> SuperAger participants' brains appear as young -- and one brain region
> was even bigger -- than the brains of the middle-aged participants.
> She was astounded by the vitality of the SuperAgers' cortex -- the
> outer layer of the brain important for memory, attention and other
> thinking abilities. Theirs was much thicker than the cortex of the
> normal group of elderly 80 and older (whose showed significant thinning) and
> closely resembled the cortex size of participants ages 50 to 65,
> considered the middle-aged group of the study.
> "These findings are remarkable given the fact that grey matter or
> brain cell loss is a common part of normal aging," said Rogalski, the
> principal investigator of the study and an assistant research professor
> at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at
> Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
> Rogalski is senior author of the paper, which is published in the Journal of
> the International Neuropsychological Society.
> By identifying older people who seem to be uniquely protected from
> the deterioration of memory and atrophy of brain cells that accompanies
> aging, Rogalski hopes to unlock the secrets of their youthful brains.
> Those discoveries may be applied to protect others from memory loss or
> even Alzheimer's disease.
> "By looking at a really healthy older brain, we can start to deduce
> how SuperAgers are able to maintain their good memory," Rogalski said.
> "Many scientists study what's wrong with the brain, but maybe we can
> ultimately help Alzheimer's patients by figuring out what goes right in
> the brain of SuperAgers. What we learn from these healthy brains may
> inform our strategies for improving quality of life for the elderly and
> for combatting Alzheimer's disease."
> By measuring the thickness of the cortex -- the outer layer of the
> brain where neurons (brain cells) reside -- Rogalski has a sense of how
> many brain cells are left.
> "We can't actually count them, but the thickness of the outer cortex
> of the brain provides an indirect measure of the health of the brain,"
> she said. "A thicker cortex, suggests a greater number of neurons."
> In another region deep in the brain, the anterior cingulate of
> SuperAger participants' was actually thicker than in the 50 to 65 year
> olds.
> "This is pretty incredible," Rogalski said. "This region is important for
> attention. Attention supports memory. Perhaps the SuperAgers have
> really keen attention and that supports their exceptional memories."
> Only 10 percent of the people who "thought they had outstanding
> memories" met the criteria for the study. To be defined as a SuperAger,
> the participants needed to score at or above the norm of the 50 to 65
> year olds on memory screenings.
> "These are a special group of people," Rogalski said. They aren't growing on
> trees."
> For the study, Rogalski viewed the MRI scans of 12 Chicago-area
> Superager participants' brains and screened their memory and other
> cognitive abilities. The study included 10 normally aging elderly
> participants who were an average age of 83.1 and 14 middle-aged
> participants who were an average age of 57.9. There were not significant
> differences in education among the groups.
> Most of the SuperAger participants plan to donate their brains to the study.
> "By studying their brains we can link the attributes of the
> living person to the underlying cellular features," Rogalski said.
>
> .
>
------------------------------------
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