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."

Comments

Bad reporting, more like

[Sockatume]

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.