A recent study published in the Oxford Academic journal Cerebral Cortex talks about “Superagers.” I have a special interest in this subject because my grandmother is now 95 years old and is what I would consider a superager.
According to the study, superagers are older adults in their 80s and 90s that maintain a youthful performance on memory recall tasks despite their age. The study shows they exhibit stronger functional connectivity or communication among the neurons in various networks in the brain. This, they linked to a youthful memory, and it turns out the superagers have the strongest connectivity.
In the first study, researchers compared the brains of typical older adults to the brains of superagers. They found that the brains of superagers are larger in the areas that contribute to memory. Including learning, storing, and retrieving information. They also reported how the brain regions form networks that communicate with one another that allow for complex behaviors.
Previous studies on morphometry revealed multiple default mode network (DMN) and salience network (SN) regions and determined that superagers have a greater cortical thickness that correlates with memory performance. This led them to examine the intrinsic functional connectivity within the DMN and SN.
The researchers said they were not surprised by their findings. Superagers had stronger connectivity within both DMN and SN networks, compared to typical adults. They also performed similarly to young adults aged 24-40 and better than typical older adults ages 69-74 on recognition tasks and showed a youthful memory performance on the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT).
The current study took superagers from 60-80 years old and young adults from 18-35. They performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and examined the synchronization of brain waves in the DMN and SN in the resting state.
“These networks ebb and flow, or oscillate, whether you’re in a resting state or engaged in a task,” said Bradford C. Dickerson, MD, director of MGH’s Frontotemporal Disorders Unit. “Our prediction was that typical older adults would have less synchronization in these brain waves—less efficient networks—but that superagers would have networks as efficient as young adults. And that’s what we found.”
For the final study, the plan is to analyze fMRI data from memory and cognitive tasks. The researchers are providing the basis for future research projects. They are curious if these superagers start with better brain structures or are perhaps more resilient to aging. Future studies may then look at diet, exercise, and other lifestyle factors. A newer study adds another candidate to that list: helping others is linked to slower cognitive decline, especially among people at high genetic risk of Alzheimer’s.
My thoughts on this subject, based on my grandmother, are that she has stayed sharp by doing her crossword puzzles every day along with reading. The crossword puzzles keep her brain active and sharp; reading allows her to become immersed in the stories, and this keeps her imagination going strong. I think that if we keep our brains active, we too can become superagers.
