Old man's memory: alignment with the best!
Scientists from the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Alzheimer's Disease at Northwestern University in Chicago found that in some very elderly people, memory practically does not deteriorate, and this turned out to be associated either with the absence of neurofibrillary tangles characteristic of the elderly in the brains of such people, or with the small presence of these characteristic formations, which for some reason do not caused memory impairment.
Neurofibrillary tangles are formed due to the improper functioning of tau protein and cause first a malfunction, and then the death of brain neurons. Such tangled neurofibrillary formations tend to accumulate with age in the brains of aging people, reaching a maximum in people suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Speaking on March 23 at the 239th National Congress of the American Chemical Society (ACS), held in San Francisco, the head of the study, Professor Changiz Geula, presented the results of a study of the pathological causes of excellent memory observed in very elderly people.
Scientists examined brain tissue samples taken posthumously from nine people who had excellent memory until their death. Elderly volunteers, whose memory was excellent according to the test results, also agreed to provide their brains for research after their demise. As part of the testing, elderly people were offered exercises aimed at assessing the ability to recall facts after telling a story and the ability to memorize lists of more than 12 words, followed by its reproduction after a certain period of time. People who were over 80 years old at the time of testing had memory at the level of 50-year-olds.
According to the results of postmortem histological analysis of the brain tissues of these people, scientists divided them into two groups: those in whom neurofibrillary tangles characteristic of the brain of aging people were practically not detected, and those in whom these tangles were detected in insignificant quantities.
Professor Geula managed to discover the presented results by applying a fundamentally new approach to the study of aging processes: in contrast to the generally accepted study of what goes wrong in the human brain with age, Professor Geula's group directed its efforts to find out what functions normally in the brains of older people.
The next stage of the work, according to Professor Geula, should be the study of the causes that prevented the formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the first group of elderly people with excellent memory and caused immunity to memory impairment in the presence of small accumulations of tau protein in people from the second group. These studies should take into account the influence of the environment, lifestyle and genetics. Some of these elderly people may have a hereditary predisposition to memory retention, while others may have prevented genetically programmed memory deterioration through diet, a healthy lifestyle, or maintaining mental tone through constant exercises to develop memory and thinking – through reading, solving crosswords, etc.
Further research in the direction proposed by Professor Geula will allow us to establish the genetic, molecular, biochemical and anatomical properties characteristic of a brain that works well in very old age. The acquired knowledge will open up broad prospects for creating ways to prevent age-related memory loss.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru Based on ScienceDaily: Probing the Secrets of Sharp Memory in Old Age25.03.2010