- An observational study looked at how superagers—people ages 80 and older with the memory function of people decades younger than them— may be resistant to age-related memory decline.
- Researchers saw that the octogenarians with sharp memory retention also moved quicker and had lower rates of anxiety and depression compared to older adults with cognitive decline.
- MRI scans also showed that superagers had more gray matter in key brain areas linked to memory.
Superagers are older adults over age 80 whose memories of life experiences are as sharp as those of people 20 or 30 years younger.
The mechanisms of superaging are a growing area of interest in scientific research.
A new study found that octogenarians with sharp memory retention also perform better on movement tests and have lower rates of anxiety and depression compared to older adults with cognitive decline.
Such superagers may also have more gray matter in their brains, the researchers say.
First author Marta Garo-Pascual, a Ph.D. candidate researching healthy memory aging at the Technical University of Madrid in Spain, said in a press release:
“We are now closer to solving one of the biggest unanswered questions about superagers: whether they are truly resistant to age-related memory decline or they have coping mechanisms that help them overcome this decline better than their peers. Our findings suggest superagers are resistant to these processes, though the precise reasons for this are still unclear. By looking further into links between superageing and movement speed we may be able to gain important insights into the mechanisms behind the preservation of memory function deep into old age.”
The results were recently published in the journal
For the study, 64 superagers identified through a memory test taken in a previous study on Alzheimer’s disease were compared with 55 typical older adults. All study participants were age 79.5 years old or older.
Researchers found that the…
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