Superagers May Hold Answers to Lifetime Cognitive Ability

A small group of octogenarians called superagers shows memory capacity comparable to younger adults, often matching the performance of people in their 50s or 60s. Researchers studied hippocampal tissue from healthy young adults, older adults without cognitive impairment, older adults with mild or early dementia, older adults with Alzheimer’s disease, and superagers. Superagers had about twice as many immature neurons in the hippocampus as their peers. These immature neurons retained the ability to mature further into adult brain cells within the tissue. In contrast, individuals meeting criteria for Alzheimer’s disease had dramatically fewer neuroblasts. The findings support a resilience signature associated with preserved cognitive longevity.

"A small group of octogenarians—informally known as superagers—possess a memory capacity equal to that of younger adults. Typically, an 80-year-old in this group demonstrates the memory powers of someone in their 50s or 60s, along with normal or above-normal performance in other cognitive domains. Until recently, brain research didn't offer much help in understanding such outliers and didn't present any neuroscientific explanation of how an 86-year-old could perform as well in memory as someone almost half their age."

"They concentrated on hippocampal tissue in 38 individuals drawn from five groups: healthy young adults, older adults without impaired cognitive functioning, older adults with mild or early dementia, older adults diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and finally, superagers. Superagers possessed about twice the number of immature neurons, which retained the capability of additional maturation into adult brain cells within the hippocampal tissue."

"Until recently, cognitive decline was the prevailing leitmotif of our understanding of brain function in those 80 years of age or older. But in March, neuroscientists at the Northwestern University Mesulam Institute for Cognitive Neurology & Alzheimer's Disease announced, after 25 years of studying superagers, the discovery of a "resilience signature" based on postmortem studies."

"In contrast, people who met the criteria for Alzheimer's disease possessed dramatically fewer neuroblasts (i"

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