The Northwestern
University SuperAging Project recruits community dwellers over the age
of 80 who have unusually high performance on tests of episodic memory.
In a previous report, a small cohort of SuperAgers was found to have
higher cortical thickness on structural MRI than a group of age-matched
but cognitively average peers. SuperAgers also displayed a patch of ACC
where cortical thickness was higher than in 50- to 60-year-old younger
cognitively healthy adults. In additional analyses, some SuperAgers had
unusually low densities of age-related Alzheimer pathology and unusually
high numbers of von Economo neurons in the anterior cingulate gyrus.
SuperAgers were also found to have a lower frequency of the ɛ4 allele of
apolipoprotein E than the general population. These preliminary results
show that above-average memory capacity can be encountered in advanced
age. They also offer clues to potential biological factors that may
promote resistance to age-related involutional changes in the structure
and function of the brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment