USE IT, DON’T LOSE IT: MAINTAINING BRAIN POWER

Here is the bad news: since the age of 10 your brain has been shrinking. At 10 it fitted snugly into your head and there was little room for anything else. By the time you are 90 it will have shrivelled and begun resembling a walnut with plenty of space-between it and the walls of your head.

But don’t worry, because here is the good news: size is not everything. A big brain does not necessarily work better than a small one. There is no correlation between brain size and 1Q. Males have heavier, bigger brains than females, so you would think they would be smarter, but they’re not.

Humans arc born with redundant brain cells. They have more neurones than they can possibly put to profitable use, and up until the age of 10, the brain organises and streamlines itself. Connections that are well used become entrenched and neurons that are not used are allowed to die. During this design process, the brain adapts and remodels itself for the future.

Around the age of 10, you have the brain you will have for life in terms of its bulk and the number of neurones operating.

Later you do a little more remodelling based on experience, but you will have less ability to adapt and you won’t get any more neurones.

From the age of 10 to the age of 15, people experience top neural function. They are not at their wisest, but their brains are at peak function for learning new things. It’s the kind of function that many at the peak of their careers wish they had. In their 40s and early 50s, men commonly begin worrying about their brains.

Overloaded at work, they are anxious about losing memory. Now, more than ever before, they have difficulty remembering names, words are on the tip of their tongues and their recollections are not as sharp as they once were.

The ageing process appears to affect memory. Memory does not go – it is just that sometimes recall is slower.

As we age, it becomes more difficult to keep many balls in air. Younger people can concentrate on several things at the same time. Older people cannot divide their attention as well. While speaking on the phone, I hey cannot talk to someone else and be pencilling in something at the same time.

Anxiety and depression can also affect memory. Distracted by their feelings, men who are anxious or depressed don’t pay attention to what they are doing. In order to lay down a memory you have to attend to the task in hand. It is simple: you have to attend and record it. Only then can you can recall it. If you never attended properly in the first place, you didn’t make the memory and you can’t recall it. Ageing and depression erode your ability to attend.

Men in mid-life, concerned about their brains, might be comforted to know that reaction times actually peak in their mid-40s.

The ability of a 40-something man to react physically in a situation that requires hand-eye coordination is marginally faster than it is in young men. This motor ability is, of course, tied to mental processes.

Although slowing is a major feature of the ageing brain, if older people are given more time, they usually compensate quite successfully and achieve equal accuracy. While a younger brain is better at some creative tasks, such as theoretical physics, other kinds of brain function show tremendous stability into the mid-to-late 70s.

Older men compensate by using stored experience. They will retrace a step to solve a problem that they solved years earlier. Younger people will take a problem they have never seen before, manipulate it and make adjustments. Older people are more likely to use previously learnt rules to attack the problem. If they have never seen it before, it is going to take them longer to deal with, but by their age they’ve usually had considerable experience and this speeds up their performance.

As long as you were healthy, you could still be President of the United States in your late 70s or early 80s. In fact, the average age of US senators is close to 70.

Men in their 60s often feel they are at their intellectual or creative peak. It’s all about focus. By that age, distractions such as child-rearing, career-building and social concerns are usually out of the way, and generally they are enjoying emotional stability. In such situations, men can clarify their priorities and focus on them.

Although there is a strong link between the brain’s ageing process and genetics, it is believed that intellectual activity can slow degeneration. Older men are advised to keep their brain stimulated by taking on intellectual challenges and remaining socially active.

It is known that the progression of dementia is slower in people living in a lively family environment compared to those who are more isolated.

When it comes to brain function, it can be a matter of ‘use it or lose it’.

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