Do our brain cells wear out as we age? If so, how do we prevent eventual memory loss?
Answers
The short answer is yes. Brain cells (neurons) do die. But this isn’t an issue for memories and knowledge (which are the same thing) because they aren’t kept in a single neuron but scattered over many. Memory is a feature of a linked network of cells.
Suppose a neuron holds your knowledge of the concept of a grandmother. In that case, if this cell dies, you will be unable to grasp what a grandmother is and so will be unable to identify your grandma, even if you are otherwise fully functional.
Memories do not vanish completely; they become fuzzier, inaccurate, and more challenging to remember. So, you may ask what the most effective way to counter it is?
Preserve your overall health by engaging in moderate exercise, eating a healthy diet, and avoiding excessive drinking. Stay away from head trauma (put your boxing gloves down). When we’re continually bombarded with suggestions to eat healthier and exercise more, it may seem to be a no-brainer. But it is still the truth.
The brain ages and may lose some cells or other functions like any other body part. If you don’t walk for a month, you’ll lose a lot of muscle mass and may find it difficult to walk. The brain, like any other body part, requires training and exercise. I even recall reading about improving one’s IQ in adulthood by undergoing specific training. So, yes, we may lose some brain cells as we age, but we can slow down the process or even prevent it.
Anything that challenges your brain can be helpful. I find brain training apps like Lumosity very amusing; I do not know if they help my brain stay healthy, but I know I’m doing what I can. If you don’t like apps, board games, and even reading are considered brain exercises. Learning new skills, like an instrument or a language, is also a great way to start.
A few neurons in the brain are constantly being destroyed during a person’s life, and the rate of their destruction rises as a person ages. There are about 100 billion neurons in a healthy young adult brain. Therefore, a slight gradual loss of neurons goes unnoticed because brain plasticity effectively programs repairs that bypass the destroyed neurons.
Brain cells wearing out is not a problem for our memories because they aren’t stored in any particular neuron but are distributed among many. Distributed representations (as we call memories) are pretty resilient and only suffer from graceful degradation or damage: memories don’t disappear completely; they only get fuzzier, imprecise, or harder to recall.
Factors that advance the rate of neuron destruction to promote the potential development of Alzheimer’s disease include an unhealthy lifestyle and diet, chronic stress, and a metabolic magnesium deficiency which are avoidable to some extent.
Our bodily systems — including the brain — gradually decline when we get older. Ageing causes a gradual decline in brain function. So people start to worry about Alzheimer’s or dementia as soon as they experience slips of mind. But not every senior ends up experiencing those conditions. The following are the most common memory changes in older age:
• Learning new things may become more challenging.
• Multitasking becomes more burdensome because we may process slower.
• Names and numbers become harder to remember after 20 due to a decline in strategic memory.
Despite research showing one-third of older adults have trouble remembering past facts or events, which results from a decline in declarative memory when it comes to cognitive tests, one-fifth of 70-year-olds perform just as well as those aged 20 and younger.
The short answer is yes. Brain cells (neurons) do die. But this isn’t an issue for memories and knowledge (which are the same thing) because they aren’t kept in a single neuron but scattered over many. Memory is a feature of a linked network of cells.
Suppose a neuron holds your knowledge of the concept of a grandmother. In that case, if this cell dies, you will be unable to grasp what a grandmother is and so will be unable to identify your grandma, even if you are otherwise fully functional.
Memories do not vanish completely; they become fuzzier, inaccurate, and more challenging to remember. So, you may ask what the most effective way to counter it is?
Preserve your overall health by engaging in moderate exercise, eating a healthy diet, and avoiding excessive drinking. Stay away from head trauma (put your boxing gloves down). When we’re continually bombarded with suggestions to eat healthier and exercise more, it may seem to be a no-brainer. But it is still the truth.
