Researchers at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine have come up with a preliminary answer as to why some people remain mentally nimble into extreme old age.

By analyzing the brains of people who had died when they were older than 80, yet who scored well on tests of brain function, the researchers discovered that these so-called ’super-aged’ brains contained far less of the tau protein tangles that accumulate inside brain cells as people age.

These tangles eventually kill the cells, and are now clearly implicated in the degeneration of mental acuity that typically accompanies aging.

These are different from the amyloid plaques that are thought to be responsible for Alzheimer’s disease, and in fact, the super-aged brains had similar amounts of amyloid plaques to the normal-aged controls.

Changis Geula, the principal investigator had this to say about the future of this research:

“We want to see what protects the brains of these individuals against the ravages that cause memory loss,” he said. ” Understanding the specific genetic and molecular characteristics of the brains that makes them resistant, someday may lead to the ability to protect average brains from memory loss.”

It will be very interesting to see where this goes, and if future therapies will be able to do something for my no doubt already accumulating tau tangles.

Adapted from materials provided by Eurekalert!