After the age of 40, our brains begin to undergo a radical “rewiring” that leads to the integration and interconnection of diverse networks over the following decades, with attendant effects on cognition, Big Think quotes a systematic scientific review, the results of which were recently published in Psychophysiology. .
In this regard, a team of researchers from Monash University in Australia, worked to find out how human brain communication changes over the course of a person’s life.
From adolescence to adulthood
The researchers were able to draw a general picture of how the retinal brain changes over the course of our lives. Early on, in the teenage and young years, the brain appears to have many segmented networks with high levels of internal connectivity, reflecting the capacity for specialized processing to occur. This conception makes sense, because that age includes the time when people learn how to exercise, speak languages, and develop talent.
However, a change begins in our mid-40s, as the brain begins to be less connected within these separate networks and more globally connected across the networks.
By the person’s 80s, the brain tends to be less specialized regionally rather than broadly connected and integrated, in what is described as “rewiring” which has significant effects on cognition.
The human brain – iStock
Adult thinking is less flexible
The researchers noted that “older adults tend to display less flexible thinking, such as the formation of new concepts and abstract thinking, and less inhibition of response, as well as lower levels of numerical and verbal reasoning.”
They also added that “these changes in executive function may be seen first in adults in their fifth decade of life.”
But the news isn’t all bad for the aging brain, with the researchers writing that “tasks that rely mostly on automated processes or are well practiced are less affected by age or may increase slightly over age, such as vocabulary and general knowledge.”
The researchers also suggested that changes occur in the brain because it is a resource-hungry organ that takes in large amounts of simple sugar glucose, noting that “the adult brain accounts for approximately 2% of the total body weight but requires about 20% of the total glucose supply.”
But with age, the human body tends to slow down and the brain becomes less efficient. So not only does the brain get less glucose, it also doesn’t use fuel well. Thus, it is possible that the retinal changes result from the brain reorganizing itself to function as it can as resources dwindle and ‘organs’ aging.
healthy lifestyle
A proper diet, regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle can keep the mind in good working order and sometimes halt network changes in old age.
“During the first years of life, there is rapid upregulation of functional brain networks. The functional networks are then improved until about the third and fourth decade of life,” the researchers say.