Groundbreaking research by Israeli and American scientists suggests that the brains of “SuperAgers” may grow more new neurons than those of their peers.

Adults over the age of 80 who can recall everyday events and their past personal history just as well as cognitively normal people in their 50s and 60s are considered SuperAgers.

The peer-reviewed findings could pave the way for designing therapeutics for healthy aging, the researchers said.

The study, published in the journal Nature, was led by Orly Lazarov, a professor in the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Medicine and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Training Program, who earned her PhD at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Technology.

Other researchers include Tamar Gefen, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who also works as a neuropsychologist at Northwestern’s Mesulam Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease, and scientists from the University of Washington.

“We’ve always said that SuperAgers show that the aging brain can be biologically active, adaptable, flexible, but we didn’t know why,” Gefen said, according to a statement by the universities.

The scientists found that SuperAgers produce twice as many new neurons as their healthy peers, and two and a half times as many as peers with Alzheimer’s disease. This could help explain why their memory stays strong with age.

The researchers also discovered a distinct “resilience signature” in the hippocampus of SuperAgers that supports the birth and survival of new neurons.

“This is a big step forward in understanding how the human brain processes cognition, forms memories, and ages,” said........

© The Times of Israel