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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

After 40 years old, many partners may find that their energy, creativity and reaction speed are not as fast as before. Previously, some research findings or popular science content will tell us that after the age of 40, "your brain begins to 'degenerate' and your brainpower is not as good as it used to be." Is this really the case?

(Nish Manek / tr. by Phil Newell)

Editor | Zhao Jiaming

We already know that as we get older, the structure, function and metabolism of the brain change significantly, along with cognitive and behavioral changes.

In a paper published in the journal Psychophysiology, scientists at Monash University in Australia summarized the ways in which neural connections in the human brain change with age, based on the results of previous studies.

Will the human brain "reorganize" after the age of 40? Scientists have found that the brain initiates neural reorganization after the age of 40, making the connections between neural networks denser and more integrated. They believe that this change may reduce the flexibility of thinking, the ability of response inhibition (the ability to suppress irrelevant, inappropriate or unnecessary behavior), and the ability to reason words and numbers. This also explains the various changes that have taken place after the age of 40, as mentioned earlier.

The studies summarized by scientists at Monash University have one thing in common-they are all based on images generated by "functional nuclear magnetic resonance technology". Through this technique, scientists can observe the brain activity of the human brain during stimulation or rest. However, due to scientists' limited understanding of the way the human brain works, whether increased neural activity in a brain region must have something to do with cognition at that moment, scientists are not sure-it may be, but current technology is difficult to prove. Or it's a coincidence.

Since previous studies have failed to establish a necessary link between brain activity and cognition, based on these studies, the conclusions drawn by Monash University scientists may not be true-there may be no "big restructuring". Even if it does, we don't know the link between this change and cognition. But then again, this paper at least shows once again that the brain does change with age.

In addition, by analyzing data from previous studies, scientists also found that this "reorganization" is slow and does not change the brain drastically every 10 years, as previously speculated.

In addition, biological memory is not an independent, classified file containing complex information, it is not a photo in a mobile phone. Memories are made up of pieces of memory, which are connected in unique and complex ways.

Why does the human brain "reorganize"? Since the beginning of the 21st century, scientists have regarded the brain as a neural network, which contains a variety of different sub-networks (that is, brain regions), which undertake different tasks. For example, some are responsible for vision, some are responsible for learning, and some are related to emotion. After more than a decade of research, scientists believe that these brain regions are functionally related to each other, forming neural networks. Neuroimaging studies have confirmed this, but as mentioned earlier, scientists are still not sure about the relationship between neural activity and various cognitive functions.

To get to the point, the scientists also found that the function of brain regions is not only a response to neural activity in their own brain regions, but also related to other brain regions-related to their neural connections to other brain regions. Not only that, the neurons in the brain region also have complex neural connections. To some extent, these neural connections reflect the brain's ability to process information.

In the Monash University study, scientists found that there are a large number of neural connections in brain regions in adolescence and young adulthood. this is the most creative and efficient period for people to work and study. In adults over the age of 40, the neural connections in the brain region decreased, while the neural connections in the brain region increased. As mentioned earlier, from the age of 40, people's mental flexibility, reaction inhibition, language and digital reasoning began to decline.

The reason for this change in the brain is due to the "rational use" of limited resources. The brain is a particularly energy-consuming organ in the human body. When young, the human body has a strong ability to acquire energy, and consuming more energy for itself is enough to meet the needs of the brain. At a certain age, for example, after 40, the body's ability to acquire energy begins to decline, and the energy intake is not enough to meet the operational needs of the brain. So our brains change the way we work-reorganize ourselves, reduce productivity, and make full use of limited resources.

References:

The older adult brain is less modular, more integrated, and less efficient at rest: A systematic review of large-scale resting-state functional brain networks in aging-Deery-2023-Psychophysiology-Wiley Online Library

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