HJNO May/Jun 2022

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  MAY / JUN 2022 51 Jeré Hales Chief Operating Officer Lambeth House adults, the brain structure of super agers was anatomically indistinguishable. Super agers were discovered to have a “youthful” brain neuroanatomy. Armedwith theunderstanding that brain regions function as a network, connecting to and communicating with each other, the researchers then explored the connections within the brains of super agers. In prior aging studies, it was theorized that cogni- tive declines in older adults are likely due to disruptions in brain connectivity. So, Harvard’s second study explored the wir- ing and connectivity of the brains of super agers compared to typical older adults and younger adults. From this study, research- ers concluded that super agers had signifi- cantly greater connectivity (meaning their brains were more “networked”) than typi- cal older adults and that super agers were statistically indistinguishable in terms of functional connectivity from younger adults. When researchers searched further and measured connectivity deeper inside the brain, in the hippocampus and the posterior cingulate cortex, they concluded that super agers had stronger connectivity than their peers and connectivity that was comparable to younger adults, suggesting the preservation of “youthful” connectiv- ity among super agers. Conclusions from both studies suggested that both the neu- roanatomy of the brain and the brain net- works of super agers were remarkably well preserved. Harvard’s third study of this cohort measured brain activation as the super ag- ers completed memory tasks. Researchers were interested in observing which areas of a super ager’s brain activates when per- forming a memory task. Using functional MRI (fMRI), researchers were able to iden- tify hot spots of brain activation during a task in a noninvasive fashion. The find- ings: researchers noted that brain regions involved in completing the tasks were activated equally in both super agers and typical older adults, but there was one big difference. That difference was noted in another region of the brain, the midcingu- late cortex, a region important for motiva- tion, attention, and executive function. The research showed that this region was ac- tivated in super agers, but not their peers. When this area is stimulated in the human brain, it elicits the will to persevere, the fortitude to attack a task even as it pushes beyond a person’s mental limits. Harvard scientists have referred to it as stimula- tion of the “tenacious brain” — that hub in the brain responsible for motivating us to complete difficult tasks and to embrace new challenges. Whether it is referred to as tenacity or perseverance or just plain grit, super agers seem to exercise it in a way that other aging adults do not. For this rea- son, more studies involving the tenacious brain are underway. The more that super agers are studied, the more the interest grows. Current stud- ies are focusing on whether genes or envi- ronment or both play a part in the making of a super ager. Is this a new phenomenon, or have super agers always walked among us? Are they born, or can they be created? Again, it’s all nothing short of fascinating. n ACCORDING to some research, super ag- ers possess memory performance capabil- ities equal to or better than those of adults at least 20, 30, or even 40 years their junior. They seem to break the rules of “normal” aging, often exercising extraordinary re- call abilities. For this reason, they have captured the attention of researchers at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Medical Center who seek to learn more about this rare and intriguing group. The first Harvard study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, focused on the actual brain structure of super agers. Us- ing conventional MRI images, they com- pared the brains of super agers to those of “typical” older adults and to those of younger adults (18-32 years old). The find- ings were remarkable. Compared to typical older adults of similar IQs and education level, super agers had thicker cortices in areas associated with memory and atten- tion. MRI images also revealed that the volume and integrity of the hippocampus of super agers was better preserved than that of their peers. The research further revealed that there was a direct correla- tion between recall performance and the thickness within a number of regions of interest (specifically the anterior temporal cortex, rostral medial prefrontal cortex, and anterior midcingulate cortex). The same was true with respect to the volume of the hippocampus. The thicker the brain regions, the better the memory. The more preserved the hippocampus, the more superior the memory performance. Most interestingly, when compared to younger