A group of 80-year-old adults is making medical history for having the cognitive health of 20-year-olds, researchers at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine said.
This group, dubbed "SuperAgers" by the research team, display cognitive ability vastly superior to their peers and also displayed some physical differences. According to lead researcher Emily Rogalski, the primary physiological difference is SuperAgers all have a much thicker cortex area of the brain than their peers.
"We know that as we age, our cognitive skills decline, and there's also a change in the amount of brain matter," said Rogalski. "Then there are these people over 80 who seem particularly sharp and somehow resist changes in memory when they age."
It is unclear at this time whether the SuperAgers were born with a thick cortex or whether it just simply didn't thin-out over time, leading to lower cognitive function.
The data was published on Thursday in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
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