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After the age of 40, the human brain undergoes a major "reconstruction".

2023-12-14 19:49:54Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
After the age of 40, the human brain undergoes a major
After the age of 40, the human brain undergoes a major "reconstruction".

In a systematic review recently published in the journal "Psychophysiology", researchers from Monash University in Australia tried to understand how the structure of the brain changes during our lifetime.

Collected data show that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain begins to undergo extensive "rewiring", a process that generates different networks that are more integrated and more related in the following decades, having direct effects on human cognitive abilities.

Since the beginning of this century, neuroscientists have increasingly viewed the brain as a complex network, composed of units divided into regions, sub-regions and individual neurons. These units are related structurally, functionally or both.

With increasingly advanced scanning techniques available, neuroscientists can observe the parts of subjects' brains that "activate" in response to stimuli, or when they are simply at rest, providing a cursory look at how our brains synchronize.

The Monash University team reviewed over 144 studies, which used these imaging techniques to analyze the brains of tens of thousands of people. From this analysis, the researchers found a general trend in how neural networks in the brain change over our lifetime. From the very beginning, in our teenage years and young adulthood, the brain appears to have multiple, segregated networks with high levels of intrinsic connectivity, reflecting the capacity for specialized processing.

And this makes sense, since this is the time when we learn how to play sports, speak foreign languages ​​and develop talents in various fields. But around your mid-40s, that starts to change. The brain begins to become less connected within those particular networks, and more connected throughout the cerebral structure.

By the time we reach our 80s, the brain tends to be less regionally specialized, being more interconnected and integrated. This "reconnection" has tangible effects on cognitive abilities. "Older people tend to show a less flexible way of thinking, such as forming new concepts and abstract thinking.

But they also have a slower reaction speed and weaker verbal and numerical reasoning. These executive function changes can first be seen in adults in their fifth decade of life, consistent with the findings of the systematic review, which concluded that functional changes in network connectivity peak in the fourth decade and fifth of life" - write the researchers.

But the news is not all bad. "Tasks that rely on largely automatic or well-practiced processes are less affected by age or may even increase slightly throughout life, such as vocabulary used and general knowledge," the authors of the study write.

But why do these changes in brain networks occur? Researchers offer several hypotheses. They noted that the brain is a resource-hungry organ that is not satiated by glucose (sugar) alone. "The adult brain makes up approximately 2 percent of the total body weight, but requires nearly 20 percent of the total glucose supply," they write.

However, as we age, our bodies tend to slow down, so the brain becomes less efficient. So not only is the brain getting less glucose, it's not using the energy properly. Thus, changes in the network are likely caused by the brain reorganizing itself to function as well as it can with dwindling resources and aging hardware.

Proper nutrition, regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle can keep the mind in good working order and put network changes on hold, sometimes even in old age. The internal structure of the brain is truly mysterious. But with this extensive study, which included hundreds of previously conducted studies and tens of thousands of brain scans, we are beginning to get a big picture of how the brain changes throughout our lives.

"During the first years of life, there is a rapid organization of functional brain networks. Further refinement of functional networks then occurs until the third and fourth decades of life. A multifaceted interplay of potentially harmful and compensatory changes may ensue during aging," the researchers concluded.


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