Indestructible plastic: the neuroscience of the new aging brain

Abstract

In recent years, research on experience-dependent plasticity has provided valuable insight on adaptation to environmental input across the lifespan, and advances in understanding the minute cellular changes underlying the brain’s capacity for self-reorganization have opened exciting new possibilities for treating illness and injury. Ongoing work in this line of inquiry has also come to deeply influence another field: cognitive neuroscience of the normal aging. This complex process, once considered inevitable or beyond the reach of treatment, has been transformed into an arena of intense investigation and strategic intervention. However, important questions remain about this characterization of the aging brain, and the assumptions it makes about the social, cultural, and biological space occupied by cognition in the older individual and body. The following paper will provide a critical examination of the move from basic experiments on the neurophysiology of experience-dependent plasticity to the growing market for (and public conception of) cognitive aging as a medicalized space for intervention by neuroscience-backed technologies. Entangled with changing concepts of normality, pathology, and self-preservation, we will argue that this new understanding, led by personalized cognitive training strategies, is approaching a point where interdisciplinary research is crucial to provide a holistic and nuanced understanding of the aging process. This new outlook will allow us to move forward in a space where our knowledge, like our new conception of the brain, is never static.

Maintaining older brain functionality: A targeted review

“…These factors, when viewed in conjunction with the antecedents of chronic disease, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and metabolic syndrome, point to possibilities for optimism for a healthier aging brain. Health effects associated with these chronic diseases may be modifiable through changes aiming at increasing physical activity/decreasing sedentary lifestyles, better stress management and participation in meaningful social networks, leading to a decrease in comorbidities and thus a healthier aging brain (Berchicci et al, 2014;Bodde et al, 2013;Daffner, 2010;Dunton et al, 2009;Holman and de Villers-Sidani, 2014;Pinazo-Duran et al, 2014;Piniewski et al, 2011;Puska, 2009;Spiro and Brady, 2011;Topiwala and Ebmeier, 2012;Voss et al, 2013).…”

Construction and evaluation of multidomain attention training to improve alertness attention, sustained attention, and visual‐spatial attention in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: A randomized controlled trial

“…38 In recent years, there is a growing interest in computer-based cognitive training as an effective way of enhancing cognition and neural plasticity in older adults. 39 Overall, the results indicated that the participants did not significantly improve their specific-attentional function and global cognitive function (total score of MMSE and MoCA) after receiving multidomain attention training. However, the participants showed changes in some domains of global cognitive measurement (ie, MMSE and MoCA subcomponents).…”

“…Fortunately, the older brain retains plasticity abilities, and as such, cognitive training and exercise may help reduce the negative effects of age on attention . In recent years, there is a growing interest in computer‐based cognitive training as an effective way of enhancing cognition and neural plasticity in older adults …”

Neuroplastizität und Schmerz

“…Neuronale Plastizität beschreibt ein sich in unterschiedlichen Phänomenen manifestierendes Potential des Nervensystems, sich über die gesamte Lebenszeit des Organismus auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen in Relation zu verschiedensten jeweiligen Beanspruchungen in Funktionsabläufen und Morphologie seiner Organisation dauerhaft zu verändern (Sagi et al, 2012;Holman & Villers-Sidani, 2014). Im neurowissenschaftlichem Kontext dominiert der enger gefasste Begriff der neuronalen Plastizität.…”