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Brains Work Best At Age of 39
Scientists at the University of California Los Angeles are reporting that while some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down. According to recent research, at age 39 our brain reaches its peak speed, and it's all downhill after that. "The loss of a fatty skin that coats the nerve cells, called neurons, during middle age causes the slowdown, experts say. The coating acts as insulation, similar to the plastic covering on an electrical cable, and allows for fast bursts of signals around the body and brain. When the sheath deteriorates, signals passing along the neurons in the brain slow down. This means reaction times in the body are slower too."
some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down
There is no contradiction, IMO. I know people who are so fast they don't have time to live, they are always five minutes late for something. Life begins when you can slow down, relax and think.
Once, over a period of a week when I was in my twenties, I got repeatedly destroyed at chess by a guy in his eighties. Seriously, I have never been so utterly unable to outthink anyone in my life, and I'm a pretty good chess player.
He started playing chess as a boy, and while he did tend to ramble on a bit, if his mind wasn't as sharp as it used to be, it must have once been able to cut diamonds...
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
... they base their result on a sample of 72 persons within an age range from 23 to 80.
Science at its best.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
could we keep people's brains working better for longer?
To be honest, given that we have no real definition of what "intelligence" is, to say that people get less intelligent in some way once they get past 40 is reaching a bit. Granted there is a physical effect being observed, but people have lost significant hunks of their brains with little detrimental effect.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
As a wise man once said to me: "A new broom sweeps like hell, but the old broom knows where the dirt is..."
The fuck it is. It's bad reporting. The actual research is all about how motor response speed correlates extremely well with myelin degradation, and discusses how this backs up the idea that myelin degradation is important in the aging of the brain and the resulting reduced physical ability. Even the press release, entitled "Physical decline caused by slow decay of brain's myelin" only mentions the 39-year figure once, and only in the context of this particular sample group, two-thirds of the way down the web page. 39 is the age at which finger tapping speed and myelin integrity both peak and begin to decline. At no point do the researchers claim that this has anything to do with cognative performance, let alone extrapolate it to say that there's some magic age at which mental function begins to decline.
That story is a creation of the media which have decided to run with "brains work best at age of 39" for no readily appreciable fucking reason. Next time, hacks, save some effort and just put a bunch of words in a hat and make up the story based on those.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Interestingly, AFAIK, myelin breakdown due to a malfunctioning immune system is very much related to diseases like MS and ALS, among others.
Which brings up a point - no two people are alike. No two people age the same way. I know guys fifteen years younger than me who look older than I am.
My uncle died of ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease). Most people are dead of this disease before age 65, he didn't even show symptoms until his eighties.
Spme people's brains peak at age 30, some people's brains peak at 50. To say everyone's brains are the same at any given age is stupidly ludicrous.
Free Martian Whores!
But that might also be because by age 40 you'd probably have diverted into management if you were no good at coding.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just because older brains don't necessarily work as fast as younger ones doesn't mean they don't work better. Plenty of better thinking is slower than the fastest stuff, like jumping to conclusions. And the older brains have lots more information and habits that can be more powerful than the newer ones. This is known to humans as "wisdom".
Besides, just getting to the wrong answer faster is not "better".
Just some more reasons people say "age and guile will beat youth and talent any day". Even if younger people just zip around without realizing it.
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make install -not war
Historically, their most significant work is done before age 30.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body