W
hen people claim that age is a state of mind, they’re correct—but not necessarily in the way they mean. It turns out that many cognitive abilities do shift somewhat as we get older; yet, it’s not always in a negative direction. Although your ability to concentrate, process new information, or have immediate total recall may decline somewhat after you reach the north side of 40, other cognitive functions (such as your general knowledge, vocabulary, and other well-defined aspects of intelligence) are likely to remain the same or even get better. Meanwhile, judgment, complex reasoning skills, executive function (a set of skills involved in abstract reasoning, planning abilities, and regulating emotions), and creativity may improve as the hands of time march forward.
The best news of all: There’s a lot you can do to
prevent many age-related cognitive changes that fall on the negative side of the ledger. “The brain is a plastic organ—it’s malleable—and with training or exercise, it gets stronger, just like the body does with physical exercise,” explains Gary Small, MD, director of the UCLA Longevity Center and author of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program (Workman, 2011). Before you start flexing and stretching your mental muscles, though, it’s important to understand what’s going on inside your brain as you get older. It’s no secret that some brain shrinkage (or atrophy) is normal with advancing age. In late adulthood, this is especially true of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s involved in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term storage and that helps you regulate emotion. In addition, there’s some build-up of plaques that can disrupt the normal functioning of nerve cells in the brain, Small notes, and blood flow to the brain declines somewhat, especially if you have atherosclerosis. Indeed, mounting scientific evidence suggests that heart-disease risk factors such as cholesterol abnormalities, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and cigarette smoking also “cause wear and tear to the brain,” Small says. They may also play a substantial role in the development of age-related cognitive decline, including dementia.
26 pause SPRING / SUMMER 2012
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