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Brains Work Best At Age of 39
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Oct 27, 2008 01:39 PM
from the sounds-like-a-good-last-day-to-me dept.
from the sounds-like-a-good-last-day-to-me dept.
Scientists at the University of California Los Angeles are reporting that while some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down. According to recent research, at age 39 our brain reaches its peak speed, and it's all downhill after that. "The loss of a fatty skin that coats the nerve cells, called neurons, during middle age causes the slowdown, experts say. The coating acts as insulation, similar to the plastic covering on an electrical cable, and allows for fast bursts of signals around the body and brain. When the sheath deteriorates, signals passing along the neurons in the brain slow down. This means reaction times in the body are slower too."
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Not a First Post (Score:5, Funny)
I'm getting old...
FRAUD ALERT -- Slashdot pseudo-science (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe older people don't take finger-tapping seriously. Maybe younger people are far more likely to have played computer games.
I met a man who was 55 who told me that he didn't get a good score on a computer pinball game he had just begun playing because he was old. Two weeks later, when I saw him again, he said his score had tripled.
Quote from the article linked by Slashdot: "Significantly, the research suggests that the myelin breakdown process should also reduce all other brain functions for which performance speed is dependent on higher AP frequencies, including memory;
That's wild over-interpretation. There is no "should" in science. There is only theory, and it is necessary to emphasize that theories are only that, theories.
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Re:FRAUD ALERT -- Slashdot pseudo-science (Score:5, Informative)
I think that the word you seek with regard to their interpretation of the results is "hypothesis". Were it a Theory, then a claim of over-interpretation would need citation.
This is besides the fact that the "word" over-interpretation doesn't make sense. Try "wild speculation" or "gross misinterpretation" next time.
As to the There is no "should" in science thing: try learning about science one day. Any scientific hypothesis must be able to make certain predictions. Predictions are worded in the subjunctive or conditional, depending on the subject matter and placement of the word. The use of the word "should" in relation to science is quite appropriate for the purposes of prediction.
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Dick works best... (Score:5, Funny)
...at age 18.
I can't wait for the spam that will advertise me an 18 year old dick, a 39 year old brain, and a 65 year old bank account.
Re:Dick works best... (Score:5, Funny)
"Unfortunately the penis is optimally functional at age 18 ... if only we could somehow align these two."
Obviously not, we are capable of thinking with one and not with the other at any given moment!
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Re:Dick works best... (Score:5, Funny)
This explains why slashdoters are so smart.
Parent
Relates to neurological disease as well (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, AFAIK, myelin breakdown due to a malfunctioning immune system is very much related to diseases like MS and ALS, among others.
Which begs the question, if we could fix those disorders including restoring the myelin around the nerve fibers, could we keep people's brains working better for longer?
Re:Relates to neurological disease as well (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect this to suddenly be "news" in about five years.
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Re:Relates to neurological disease as well (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the research on the 'racetam family of bioactives has been done in Russia, and because of this there are both mistrusts and language barriers to overcome, but in doing so I discovered some pretty massively interesting studies all about specifically myelin sheath issues. So, since these substances are freely available in the US without any kind of prescription (unlike Russia, interestingly), I purchased a few and fed them to my mother, who is in the last couple of stages of post polio syndrome, which among other things (to put it in a nutshell) severely inhibits myelin effectiveness in nerve sheath maintenance. When she started the regimen a year ago, she couldn't walk at all and had great difficulty grasping things with her left hand, and was also in tremdous pain.
Just a week ago she and I walked about six blocks to a restaurant, and then back. She can grasp things in her left hand fairly well at this point, and is in very little pain.
I don't know myelin "helping" nootropics are the holy grail of neurological disorders, but they appear to have helped at least one person tremendously.
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Re:Relates to neurological disease as well (Score:5, Insightful)
could we keep people's brains working better for longer?
To be honest, given that we have no real definition of what "intelligence" is, to say that people get less intelligent in some way once they get past 40 is reaching a bit. Granted there is a physical effect being observed, but people have lost significant hunks of their brains with little detrimental effect.
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Re:Relates to neurological disease as well (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, AFAIK, myelin breakdown due to a malfunctioning immune system is very much related to diseases like MS and ALS, among others.
Which brings up a point - no two people are alike. No two people age the same way. I know guys fifteen years younger than me who look older than I am.
My uncle died of ALS (Lou Gherig's Disease). Most people are dead of this disease before age 65, he didn't even show symptoms until his eighties.
Spme people's brains peak at age 30, some people's brains peak at 50. To say everyone's brains are the same at any given age is stupidly ludicrous.
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Midlife crisis (Score:5, Funny)
This is probably what leads to a midlife crisis. One day you wake up smarter than you've ever been and go "holy shit, I've been a jackass all these years". Then you go and do something about it.
With three weeks to go until my 39th birthday.... (Score:5, Funny)
...I have to say I expected a little more ;-)
Speed of life and life itself are different things (Score:5, Insightful)
some people may think "life begins at 40," all it seems to do is slow down
There is no contradiction, IMO. I know people who are so fast they don't have time to live, they are always five minutes late for something. Life begins when you can slow down, relax and think.
Coding too (Score:4, Insightful)
But that might also be because by age 40 you'd probably have diverted into management if you were no good at coding.
Parent
speed isn't that important (Score:5, Insightful)
Once, over a period of a week when I was in my twenties, I got repeatedly destroyed at chess by a guy in his eighties. Seriously, I have never been so utterly unable to outthink anyone in my life, and I'm a pretty good chess player.
He started playing chess as a boy, and while he did tend to ramble on a bit, if his mind wasn't as sharp as it used to be, it must have once been able to cut diamonds...
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Being 41, I was rather dismayed to see this article. Even more upsetting was the fact that I then proceeded to left click on it, rather than my ususal middle-click to open it in a tab.
Oh no! It's starting already!
Ahem ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Science at its best.
CC.
Re:Ahem ... (Score:5, Funny)
... they base their result on a sample of 72 persons within an age range from 23 to 80.
What do you expect? The researcher was in his 40's. He was much better a few years back...
Parent
Re:Ahem ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still _BAD_ science.
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Bad reporting, more like (Score:5, Insightful)
That story is a creation of the media which have decided to run with "brains work best at age of 39" for no readily appreciable fucking reason. Next time, hacks, save some effort and just put a bunch of words in a hat and make up the story based on those.
Parent
What about exercise? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is well known that regular intense exercise has a profound impact on aging and brain performance.
I can't take a report serious that doesn't take the effect of exercise into consideration and doesn't even mention it.
So does 39 apply to complete couch potatoes? Average Americans with little exercise? Athletes?
Fatty skin? (Score:4, Funny)
Loss of fatty skin? When I hit middle age, that's when I started getting fatty skin.
Re:...and they said.... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is No "one" point where the body stops working. Different systems age at different rates:
- the reproductive system peaks somewhere around age 16 or 17 (lowest risk of birth defects) ;-)
- the *desire* for sex peaks just prior to menopause for women (circa age 35) and apparently never ends for men
- flexibility (ala gymanasts and skaters) peaks at 15 and ends around 25
- reaction time peaks at 30
- and now it's revealed that the human brain peaks just prior to 40 - after which the neurons' tendrils start falling apart (like an old rubber hose).
Parent
Re:Just the speed of reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
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