Friday, October 31, 2014

The Aging Brain


     Aging has always been something of interest because there is no real distinction of whether aging is just a natural occurrence or if it is the result of disease. The ability to maintain cognitive development and abilities into old age are current aims for scientific studies. Without the strong protection the brain has, it is susceptible to vascular conditions, metabolic syndromes, and chronic stress. Scientists believe that studying cognitive aging is relevant to identifying how to intervene on aging and improve the quality of life.
   
     One study found IQ tests from Scotland from 1947 and had Scotland citizens that took those tests previously take them again, at 78 years old. From that study, it was found that participants in the IQ test at age 11's scores could predict about 50% of the variance in their IQ's at age 78. This study was interesting and is a good example of the work scientists are doing to try to link aging and cognitive function.

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5 comments:

  1. It's always been interesting how even when we were little, like mother listening to Beethoven when the baby is still in the womb. If aging is not a natural occurrence then is it possible to create a "potion" of immortality if it can be "cured"?

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  2. I've always been interested in this topic myself. The older generations of my family tended to live a lot longer than the more recent one. As most know, we deal with more unnatural causes than in the past but I have always wondered if it was gene related.

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  3. I found this article to be quite interesting. The brain and "aging" or a natural deterioration due to disease is always a fascinating topic. This is a topic I wish to learn and study more about due to the increasing numbers of diseases that attack the brain, thus resulting in shorten lifespan. Maybe this has to do with inheritance, or maybe these unnatural causes can be fixed..

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  4. I found this article extremely interesting as well. Aging is something that is obviously unavoidable especially with our minds. However, it is always incredible how some people can live until 100 and never seem to show serious signs of aging, in particular mentally, but others can start to lose their brain function at a much younger age. As Melissa pointed out this may be due to inheritance and if so hopefully further study can reveal the inheritance patterns. Understanding potential inheritance patterns will certainly go a long way in developing an understanding as to why and how aging in the mind occurs and how it is different in each person.

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  5. I've seen people who start forgetting things a lot easier as they age and I've also seen many people elderly people thinking on the same cognitive level as they had as a teenager, although rare. These studies are really cool because everyone knows that the brain ages with the body and there's no way things aren't lost. But to be able to pinpoint the genes that promote these cognitive loses may lead to preventative methods to train the brain.

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