A research team comparing the brains of superagers with those of regular adults has found that people in the former group exhibited markedly faster movement speeds and better mental performance compared to other age-matched older adults.
Elderly Exercise
Being forgetful can be taken as part of the normal aging process. People start forgetting things or finding it hard to recall information on past events as they get older. A severe loss of episodic memory (a collection of personal life experiences) also often occurs as a result of conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
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Researchers have observed, however, that some older people referred to as superagers seem to be resistant to age-related memory decline. The memory of these people is comparable to that of persons who are 20 to 30 years younger.
This new study, reported in the journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity, sheds light on some lifestyle and brain structure differences between superagers and regular older adults that could explain the former’s improved memory capacity. It was led by researchers from Spain’s Center for Biomedical Technology, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Superaging and lifestyle habits
The research team used a subset of participants from the Vallecas Project, a cohort of community-dwelling persons aged 70-85 years having no neurological disorders, in this study. Those who were at least 80 years old and whose memory was as good as that of a typical middle-aged person were included in a superager group.
There were 64 superagers in all with a mean age of 81.9 years. The control group included 55 normal older adults with 82.4 years as their mean age.
MRI scans and other tests performed on the subjects revealed lifestyle differences. Researchers found that physical activity and educational attainment were among the lifestyle factors that showed a relationship with the superaging phenotype. These factors are known to help prevent or delay the onset of age-related dementia.
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The researchers observed that having a musical background or being separated/divorced seemed to be associated with superagers. Training and continued practice may explain how a musical background could support cognitive function. But the association with being divorced or separated was not very clear.
The need for self-reliance or the lack of need to care for another person may explain the association between superaging and living alone, researchers thought.
Differences in brain structure
Structurally, the brains of a superager and a regular older adult were also found to be different. Analyses of gray matter volumes of superager and typical adult cohorts revealed differences that may explain the advantages of the former group. Superagers showed better gray matter preservation in brain areas that are related to memory.
Neuroimaging of the brains of superagers showed reduced atrophy in the brain cortex and certain memory-linked areas, including the hippocampus. Subjects in this group had bigger hippocampal volumes and thicker anterior cingulate cortices, compared to those in the control group.
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Researchers observed a link between better memory and movement speed. The superager group displayed more rapid movement speeds, compared to the control group. In addition, superagers showed better general mental health than normal age-matched adults.
There is a need for more studies to build on findings in the current one, the researchers noted. The observed association between superaging and being separated or divorced is one of those things worth exploring further.
References
Garo-Pascual, M., Gaser, C., Zhang, L., Tohka, J., Medina, M., & Strange, B. A. (2023). Brain structure and phenotypic profile of superagers compared with age-matched older adults: a longitudinal analysis from the Vallecas Project. The Lancet Healthy Longevity. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(23)00079-X
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