For a sharp brain, only way is Stimulation

: Americans may worry about heart disease, stroke and diabetes, but they downright dread Alzheimer’s disease, a recent survey found. For good reason. One in eight adults over 65 is affected by the disease. Those who are spared know they may end up with the burden of caring for a parent or a spouse who is affected. Even though the number of older adults with dementias is rising rapidly, only a few drugs that have been approved to treat symptoms are on the market, and they slow down the disease but do not cure it.

Researchers, however, are more optimistic than ever about the potential of the aging brain, because recent evidence has challenged long-held beliefs by demonstrating that the brain can grow new nerve cells.

“For a long time, we held the assumption that we’re born with all the nerve cells we’re ever going to have, and that the brain is not capable of generating new ones - that once these cells die we’re unable to replace them,” said Molly V Wagster, chief of the Neuropsychology of Aging branch of the National Institute on Aging. “Those assumptions have been challenged and put by the wayside.”

The birth of new nerve cells, she said, “has been shown to occur in the adult — not only in adult rats and monkeys, but also in older adult humans.” Most of the areas that show neurogenesis and that have been investigated so far are important for learning and memory, particularly the hippocampus, she added.

So how does one stimulate neurogenesis? Scientists do not have all the answers, but studies of older people who have maintained their mental acuity provide some clues. They tend to be socially connected, with strong ties to relatives, friends and community. They are often both physically healthy and physically active. And they tend to be engaged in stimulating or intellectually challenging activities.

The big question is whether they remain mentally alert because they engage in these activities, or whether they are able to engage in these activities because they are cognitively intact.

“We don’t know whether this is an example of reverse causation or not - it’s probably a two-way street,” said Bruce S McEwen, who heads the neuroendocrinology lab at Rockefeller University in New York.

But some interventional studies that have introduced older adults to exercise regimens have reported remarkable results.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recruited a group of sedentary...

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