An insightful study analyzing what contributes to the sharpness of mind in old age has found evolutionary hints.
The study, which was published within the peer-reviewed Chinese journal Science Bulletin, found that more developed frontal lobes were related to sharp minds in some old people. The rationale behind this occurrence could also be attributed to natural selection in human evolution.
“Our team initiated the Beijing Ageing Brain Rejuvenation Initiative in 2008, which focused on elderly individuals with cognitive impairment because they needed more attention. But during our community-based research, we found there was a gaggle of elderly individuals who aged more slowly and had a better quality of life,” Chen Yaojing, study corresponding creator and a researcher at Beijing Normal University, said, reported South China Morning Post. “We would like to learn from them and discover ways to maintain our brain in a healthier state.”
It was found throughout the study that folks who had successful cognitive aging (SCA) had a greater preserved frontal region of the brain. Meanwhile, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) exhibited structural deterioration within the temporal region of the brain.
The authors recommend a “frontal preservation, temporal impairment (FPTI)” hypothesis to supply a proof for the differences in individuals’ cognitive aging.
The frontal lobes are related to cognitive functions, akin to decision-making, problem-solving, and a focus. Interestingly, the frontal lobes are certainly one of the important features that separate human beings and animals. The frontal lobes are proportionally larger in humans than in other species of animals.
Chen said the human frontal lobe was essentially the most recent one to evolve and it exhibited age-related decline faster than other abilities.
“There’s a theory called ‘last in, first out’. The most recent part in evolution will decline first because human beings tend to save lots of their survival abilities to the tip,” Chen said. “So, for many elderly people, the functions of their frontal lobes decline early. But for individuals with successful cognitive aging, their frontal lobes are preserved well.”
The temporal lobes are chargeable for processing auditory information and preserving memory. Structural abnormalities on this region have been related to pathological cognitive aging, in keeping with researchers.
Three groups of older adults aged between 70 and 88 were recruited for the study. These included 64 successful cognitive aging individuals, 68 mild cognitive impairment patients, and 66 cognitively normal controls.
For the study, Chen and her colleagues analyzed gray matter volume, gray matter networks, and white matter network characteristics of the three groups.
In comparison with the opposite two groups, the SCA group performed higher on all three parameters.
“If our hypothesis is proven true, in the long run we are able to develop the frontal lobes or slow the aging of temporal lobes,” Chen concluded. “This can be a multidisciplinary effort.”