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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."
Interestingly, AFAIK, myelin breakdown due to a malfunctioning immune system is very much related to diseases like MS and ALS, among others.
Which begs the question, if we could fix those disorders including restoring the myelin around the nerve fibers, could we keep people's brains working better for longer?
.: Max Romantschuk
It is well known that regular intense exercise has a profound impact on aging and brain performance.
I can't take a report serious that doesn't take the effect of exercise into consideration and doesn't even mention it.
So does 39 apply to complete couch potatoes? Average Americans with little exercise? Athletes?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
There is No "one" point where the body stops working. Different systems age at different rates:
- the reproductive system peaks somewhere around age 16 or 17 (lowest risk of birth defects) ;-)
- the *desire* for sex peaks just prior to menopause for women (circa age 35) and apparently never ends for men
- flexibility (ala gymanasts and skaters) peaks at 15 and ends around 25
- reaction time peaks at 30
- and now it's revealed that the human brain peaks just prior to 40 - after which the neurons' tendrils start falling apart (like an old rubber hose).
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Fraud Alert: The results are wildly over-interpreted. The conclusions are guessing, not science.
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Maybe older people don't take finger-tapping seriously. Maybe younger people are far more likely to have played computer games.
I met a man who was 55 who told me that he didn't get a good score on a computer pinball game he had just begun playing because he was old. Two weeks later, when I saw him again, he said his score had tripled.
Quote from the article linked by Slashdot: "Significantly, the research suggests that the myelin breakdown process should also reduce all other brain functions for which performance speed is dependent on higher AP frequencies, including memory;
That's wild over-interpretation. There is no "should" in science. There is only theory, and it is necessary to emphasize that theories are only that, theories.
Being 44 years old now, I have noticed that I'm not able to think as clearly as I did in my early thirties. In my self analysis, however, I find the biggest culprit is "brain noise." When I think about something, irrelevant associations will pop in with much greater frequency, distracting me from "pure" concentration. Which makes me wonder if it's simply a natural consequence of life: more and more detail is stored away in my head. A younger person with a relatively "empty" head isn't as distracted by all the useless dreck and is able to form thoughts more cleanly.
Even as I type this post, my lifetime of experience keep popping in with tangentially relevant information, not to mention songs triggered by phrases, movie quotes and other useless crapola. :D
I've actually wondered if there are mental exercises such as meditation that might help to quiet all the noise.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The New Yorker had an interesting article a few weeks back about young vs old geniuses, that your post made me think of. Let me see if I can find it....
Ah, here it is
From reading various things, I've come to the conclusion that brains are hard to generalize. Even assuming one of the million things that can go wrong with them doesn't, in fact, happen, they still develop differently from individual to individual, and that what we presume to be the normal way that people's brains "age" isn't necessarily so.