The secret of sharp memory in old age

March, 2010

Examination of the brains from 9 “super-aged” — people over 80 whose memory performance was at the level of 50-year-olds — has found that some of them had almost no tau tangles. Are they genetically protected, or reaping the benefits of a preventive lifestyle?

Examination of the brains from 9 “super-aged” — people over 80 whose memory performance was at the level of 50-year-olds — has found that some of them had almost no tau tangles. The accumulation of tau tangles has been thought to be a natural part of the aging process; an excess of them is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The next step is to work out why some people are immune to tangle formation, while others appear immune to the effects. Perhaps the first group is genetically protected, while the others are reaping the benefits of a preventive lifestyle.

Reference: 

The findings were presented March 23 at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Related News

Quarter of British children performing poorly due to family disadvantage

Openness to experience – being flexible and creative, embracing new ideas and taking on challenging intellectual or cultural pursuits – is one of the ‘Big 5’ personality traits. Unlike the other four, it shows some correlation with cognitive abilities.

A certain level of mental decline in the senior years is regarded as normal, but some fortunate few don’t suffer from any decline at all.

Certainly experiences that arouse emotions are remembered better than ones that have no emotional connection, but whether negative or positive memories are remembered best is a question that has produced equivocal results.

Previous research has found that carriers of the so-called

Math-anxiety can greatly lower performance on math problems, but just because you suffer from math-anxiety doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to perform badly.

IQ has long been considered to be a fixed attribute, stable across our lifetimes. But in recent years, this assumption has come under fire, with evidence of the positive and negative effects education and experiences can have on people’s performance.

Brain imaging data from 103 healthy people aged 5-32, each of whom was scanned at least twice, has demonstrated that wiring to the

Mathematics is a complex cognitive skill, requiring years of formal study. But of course some math is much simpler than others. Counting is fairly basic; calculus is not. To what degree does ability at the simpler tasks predict ability at the more complex?

There has been a lot of argument over the years concerning the role of genes in intelligence. The debate reflects the emotions involved more than the science. A lot of research has gone on, and it is indubitable that genes play a significant role.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.