The Main Pathways of Brain Aging
Advanced age affects our brain in many ways. Here’s a bird’s eye view of all the things that can go wrong
Old brains
There’s a great quote by writer George Orwell that goes as follows:
At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
If we look past the ‘he’ — such were the times — this quote tells us two important things:
- We have some control over how we age.
- But we all inevitably age.
And that inevitable aging leaves its traces all over our bodies.
Our immune system sputters, cancer risk rises, muscle tissue dwindles, joints stiffen. Our microbiome, skin, and body shape change as well.
The brain changes too.
Beyond specific age-associated conditions such as dementia, old age still works its — not always desirable — magic on our brains. The folded white-and-gray lump of thinking tissue in our skulls shrinks in volume, becomes more prone to strokes, and the white part is more susceptible to lesions. Zooming in, we can see that gene activity goes a little weird too.
That doesn’t mean we are helpless. From this review:
Protective factors that…
