A Good Cognitive Reserve Protects The Brain
The term cognitive reserve describes our brain’s ability to ‘compensate’ so that we can continue to function normally in the event of brain damage. Regularly performing activities that train your cognitive abilities, such as reading or math, can protect you from the effects of old age and dementia, increase neural plasticity, and create new connections when others have weakened.
After many years of research, it was observed that the same brain injury does not always have the same impact on different people. So we ask: which factors influence the development of dementia and other neurological disorders? Many therapies for treating Alzheimer’s disease are based on the fact that the brain is plastic and that intellectual activity is beneficial to the brain, even during old age and in case of damage.
The Nun Study
One of the most authoritative studies of cognitive reserve was neurologist David Snowdon’s famous experiment conducted in 1986 at the University of Kentucky. Snowdon called it ‘The Nun Study’. The experiment consisted of examining a group of nuns in a monastery and observing their cognitive functions, such as memory.
Data on these functions were collected for seventeen years. When autopsies were performed on them after the nuns died, it was discovered that the brain of one of the nuns, who had never shown symptoms of dementia, showed signs of the pathological features of advanced Alzheimer’s disease. How was this possible?
What factors influence cognitive reserve?
There are many factors that are related to building a good cognitive reserve. The most important include:
- Education and an interest in culture.
- Doing a job that is intellectually demanding.
- Having a wide network of social relationships.
- Moderately intense physical activity performed daily.
- Read regularly.
- Performing complex intellectual activities such as playing a musical instrument.
These are the main factors as described in the scientific literature, although other factors such as diet have also been considered. However, everyday tasks such as learning new things, developing your creativity, trying to do the same task in a new way, and doing more mental math more often can cause you to build up a greater cognitive reserve.
It is never too late for people to learn. Although childhood is the period when the brain can absorb the most information, we can always keep increasing our abilities. Remember that the volume of your cognitive reserve is not constant. We condition its size at a young age, but continue to shape it over the years.
The influence of the cognitive reserve
Yaakov Stern, an expert in the field, argues that all these factors promote the efficacy of our neural networks and the compensation through alternative neural networks. In this way, we can protect ourselves from the common changes in cognitive functions that occur after injuries and accidents.
Not only does learning protect us from diseases like Alzheimer’s, slowing the progress of these diseases and even delaying their appearance, but it also promotes recovery from traumatic brain injury resulting from an accident.
The risk of dementia in old age remains, but science has opened the door to a potential preventive solution that could make us less vulnerable to diseases that become more common as we age.
