How EXACTLY is your competent? doctor getting you to be a super ager? NO plans? Then fire that incompetent doctor! I'm going to get there and nothing from my stroke medical 'professionals' has anything to do with that goal.
Superagers' Brains Are Different: Here's How
Decades of research shed light on why some older adults are as sharp at age 80 as they were at 50
Superagers -- a group of adults over age 80 with the memory capacity of much younger people -- maintained good brain morphology, tended to be gregarious, and appeared to be resistant to neurofibrillary degeneration and resilient to its consequences, more than two decades of research showed.
In contrast to neurotypical peers who had age-related brain shrinkage, this group had a region in the cingulate gyrus that was thicker than younger adults, reported Sandra Weintraub, PhD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues.
Superagers also had fewer Alzheimer's-related brain changes, greater size of entorhinal neurons, fewer inflammatory microglia in white matter, better preserved cholinergic innervation, and a greater density of evolutionarily progressive von Economo neurons, Weintraub and colleagues wrote in a perspective piece in Alzheimer's & Dementia.
No particular lifestyle was conducive to superaging, the researchers said. Some superagers appeared to follow all conceivable recommendations for a healthy life. Others did not eat well, enjoyed smoking and drinking, shunned exercise, suffered stressful life situations, and did not sleep well.
Superagers also did not seem to be medically healthier than their peers and took similar medications as they did. However, the superager group was notably sociable, relishing extracurricular activities. Compared with their cognitively average peers, they rated their relationships with others more positively. On a self-reported questionnaire of personality traits, they tended to endorse high levels of extraversion.
It wasn't the social and lifestyles aspects of superaging that surprised the researchers; it was "really what we've found in their brains that's been so earth-shattering for us," Weintraub said in a statement.
"Our findings show that exceptional memory in old age is not only possible but is linked to a distinct neurobiological profile," she continued. "This opens the door to new interventions aimed at preserving brain health well into the later decades of life."
The most surprising finding was that superagers had greater cortical thickness in an anterior cingulate region than even neurotypical participants 50 to 60 years old, Weintraub and colleagues said. "This finding subsequently has been confirmed in other studies," they pointed out.
The anterior cingulate is a primary component of the salience and anterior paralimbic networks which mediate processes related to homeostasis, motivation, emotion, and social networking behaviors -- factors that resonate with superager characteristics, the researchers added.
The density of von Economo neurons in superager brains did not show the age-related changes found in typical older adults, Weintraub and co-authors noted. The functionality of the cortical cholinergic system appeared to be enhanced in superagers at the neuronal, axonal, and synaptic level. Superager brains also appeared to be resilient and resistant to Alzheimer's amyloid and tau build-up, in line with other resarch.
Northwestern Medicine has studied a cohort of 290 superagers and conducted 77 superager brain autopsies since 2000. The perspective was published as part of a special issue of Alzheimer's & Dementia that commemorated the 40th anniversary of the National Institute on Aging's Alzheimer's Disease Centers Program and the 25th anniversary of Northwestern's National Alzheimer Coordinating Center.
"In the future, deeper characterization of the superaging phenotype may lead to interventions that enhance resistance and resilience to involutional changes considered part of average (i.e., 'normal') brain aging," Weintraub and colleagues stated. "This line of work is helping to revise common misperceptions about the cognitive potential of senescence and has inspired investigations throughout the United States and abroad."
Disclosures
Studies supported by the Northwestern Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and National Institute on Aging were included in this perspective.
Weintraub and co-authors had no disclosures.
Primary Source
Alzheimer's & Dementia
Source Reference: Weintraub S, et al "The first 25 years of the Northwestern University SuperAging Program" Alzheimer's Dement 2025; DOI: 10.1002/alz.70312.
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