Old age isn't mental decline: The brain rewires itself for experience

Neuroscientists from the University of Arizona in the USA revealed that memory changes seen in older ages do not mean wear or decline of the brain, on the contrary, the brain restructures itself to use accumulated experiences more efficiently. In the study, the thesis that 'old age is a period of compensation and regression', long advocated by traditional neuroscience circles, was refuted.

Scientists stated that similar neurological leaps experienced in childhood also occur in older ages, and suggested that aging is not a loss of mental capacity, but a genetically preserved adaptive development phase.

According to the research, as we get older, the hippocampus region of the brain, which manages instant and detail memory, recedes into the background, while the forebrain cortex, which processes general information and experiences, takes over control.

Pointing out that the hippocampus is a structure that consumes excessive energy, researchers determined that the brain makes a conscious task change in order to use its resources economically and organize the huge data accumulation acquired in youth. While it was determined that some neural connections and synapse networks became significantly stronger instead of weakening in old age, it was determined that the brain shifted its priority from remembering daily unimportant details to social information transfer, deep experience and social relationship management.

"If we read normative aging only as a story of mental decline and loss, we miss the big picture. The older brain is optimized for very different functions than the younger brain, especially for the sharing of stored expertise," said psychologist Fabian-Xose Fernandez, lead author of the study.

Experts emphasized that clarifying this natural adaptation strategy of the brain will cross a critical threshold in the medical world. It was stated that by drawing the boundaries of natural and healthy mental restructuring, the biological symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, which occurs with uncontrolled hippocampus activity in its early stages, can be distinguished much earlier and more clearly from the normal aging process.