Minor lapses of memory, such as forgetting where you parked the car in the mall parking lot or forgetting an acquaintance’s name, are normal signs of aging. In some people, their brains compensate to maintain memory. How their brains compensate and what influences these changes is being studied to help people reduce the effects of normal aging. It is clear that memory and other brain functions decline to varying degrees even in healthy people as they age. The question of how to delay normal cognitive aging has become more important as the population achieves great longevity. People who are 65 today will, on average, live to be 83. People in their 50s may live another 40 years. Some scientists feel that our healthcare system should invest in fighting cognitive decline in aging as it has in heart disease and cancer.

Research has shown evidence that some people’s brains use new pathways when old ones are damaged. Scientists are focusing on harnessing this ability. Healthy brains are described as "bushy" with branch-like tentacles extending from the ends of the brain’s cells. These enable the cells to communicate with each other. The more you learn or use your brain, the more these connections form. Alzheimer’s disease kills neurons so these cells disappear, making communication between cells more difficult. With normal aging these cells do not die but they do shrink, causing more difficulty sending messages and affecting memory. In addition, Alzheimer’s disease seems to affect an area in the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus, first. Research is aimed at understanding why some brains are not as severely affected by these changes as others. Among their findings are that some people have a greater ability to withstand the assault of neuron death known as cognitive reserve. Autopsies have shown that 20% to 40% of elderly people who showed no signs of confusion actually had brains riddled with Alzheimer’s plaques. Their brains apparently had such "bushy" brains that when neurons died they had enough remaining to function normally. Also, some brains are able to compensate and use new pathways to reroute thought process to avoid old pathways that have quit working. This is shown by brain scans that demonstrate that older people use different brain pathways than young people when performing the same task.

Regular physical exercise is the best prescription for maintaining memory right now. Improvement in memory was demonstrated in 72-year-olds who started walking three days a week. Their brain scans showed activity patterns that resembled of younger people. There is also the "use it or lose it" theory of building up cognitive reserve. It is theorized that people with higher education, more challenging occupations, and richer social lives build more cognitive reserve than "couch potatoes" but this has never really been proven. Scientists are trying to find the recipe for building this reserve.

The development of medications has been slow because companies are reluctant to conduct drug studies on normal aging brains. Some animal studies have shown promise. One of the most promising agents is an old blood pressure medication known as guanfacine, which may help keep brain networks better connected.

Reference: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21310786/.

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