How to prevent Alzheimer’s? The answer is 678 nuns and a scientist. The nuns were the sisters of the Notre Dame Convent in Mankato, Minnesota, a group of particularly long-lived and lucid women. The scientist, David Snowdon, assessed the sisters’ cognitive performance and analyzed their postmortem brains. His findings were surprising. The typical pathological signs of Alzheimer’s disease appeared in the brains of many of these women. However, these same women had shown a lucidity in the last years of their lives apparently incompatible with the symptoms that we associate with this disease.
What could explain this discrepancy? A life full of experiences and intellectual stimulation seems to be the key to what is now calledcognitive reserve. The cognitive reserve is the ability to get the most out of our brain. Thanks to a brain property known as plasticity, the brain, our ‘chief organ’, is capable of changing and modifying itself even in old age. In the case of the Notre Dame sisters, their teaching, an active lifestyle and healthy habits seemed to be a powerful combination against the threat of Alzheimer’s.
Contrary to what was traditionally thought, scientific findings tell us that at maturity new neurons are also generated and new connections are established between them. This is the foundation of learning. Using strategies such as the organization and association of information, the use of lists or the use of agendas are some options to improve our functioning. In addition, taking advantage of the rise of new technologies, more complete brain training programs have been developed. These programs seek to strengthen our capacities for attention, memory, language, etc., through games and exercises that keep our minds active. They thus protect us from the effects of time and degenerative diseases.
By: Marisa Fernández, Unobrain Neuropsychologist
