“Super-agers” may provide the secret to stopping memory loss in old age
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Can we get them to find our car keys?
By Sophie Gallagher
Despite being nowhere near old enough to qualify for a bus pass, we are already starting to lose our memories.
But that is just an inevitable part of getting older, right? Well not for everyone.
A new study by Massachusetts General Hospital has revealed ‘super agers’ – a group of people who evade the seemingly inevitable fate of memory deterioration.
This remarkable phenomenon is leaving scientists perplexed as these elderly brains, which normally experience shrinkage over time, look like (and have key areas) which resemble much younger brains.
Author Alexandra Touroutoglou said: “We looked at a set of brain areas known as the default mode network, which has been associated with the ability to learn and remember new information, and found that those areas, particularly the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex, were thicker in super agers than in other older adults [who had experienced the anticipated shrinkage].
“In some ...
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