The brains of some elderly people with super-sharp memory seem to escape the formation of destructive "tangles" that increase with normal aging and peak in people with Alzheimer's. A study of the brains of people who stayed mentally sharp into their 80s and beyond challenges the notion that brain changes linked to mental decline and Alzheimer's disease are a normal, inevitable part of aging.
In a presentation at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Changiz Geula, principal investigator of the Northwestern University Super Aging Project and a professor of neuroscience at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, and colleagues described their discovery of elderly people with super-sharp memory -- so-called "super-aged" individuals -- who somehow escaped formation of brain "tangles."
The tangles consist of an abnormal form of a protein called "tau" that damages and eventually kills nerve cells. Named for their snarled, knotted appearance under a microscope, tangles increase with advancing age and peak in people with Alzheimer's disease.
"This discovery is very exciting," said Geula, "It is the first study of its kind and its implications are vast. We always assumed that the accumulation of tangles is a progressive phenomenon throughout the normal aging process. Healthy people develop moderate numbers of tangles, with the most severe cases linked to Alzheimer's disease. But now we have evidence that some individuals are immune to tangle formation. The evidence also supports the notion that the presence of tangles may influence cognitive performance. Individuals with the fewest tangles perform at superior levels. Those with more appear to be normal for their age."
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