(22 Aug 2013) Edith Stern is a 92-year-old retiree who may hold the key to aging well.
She's a sprightly leader in her Chicago retirement home, playing mother hen to many of the residents and keeping an eye on the communal snack drawer.
Her liveliness doesn't necessarily come from strength of body - but strength of mind.
"I might look old, but inside I am not old," says Stern with a twinkle in her eye.
She knows she's a little different from the others in her home. Now, some neuroscientists at Northwestern University agree with her.
They say she has the brain of a 50 or 60-year-old person, putting Stern in an elite group of seniors researchers call super agers.
"What allows them to maintain optimal memory performance in older age?" asks Emily Rogalski, a neuroscientist at Northwestern and leader of a study examining the super agers.
Rogalski and her team are looking for ways to prevent dementia, even Alzheimer's, and believe super agers in their 80s and 90s can help.
Imaging tests show they have less age-related plaque on their brains than their peers.
Super agers also have more brain mass in areas used for memory and attention.
But it's a very select group. Not everyone can be a super ager, although Rogalski is still looking for study participants. To qualify you must pass a battery of mental tests.
"We've screened over 400 people at this point, and only about 35 of them have been eligible for this study, so it really represents a rare portion of the population," says Rogalski.
Beyond possessing a sharp memory, researchers say super agers seem to have more energy than their peers, and share a positive outlook on life.
It's unclear yet if those factors help with memory.
"I do know that my memory is better than most people my age. I'm not sure why that is. I'm very grateful for it. Some of it I'm sure is due to genetics. Some of it may be for some other causes, and I don't think the researchers know any more than I do about why I have a good memory, and others like me." says Don Tenbrunsel, an 85-year-old retired businessman and super ager study volunteer.
Tenbrunsel is cheerful, active and spends time working at his Chicago church food pantry.
"I think I'm just lucky, not only with respect to my memory, but I'm able to get around very well. I walk a lot, so, and I have a pretty good attitude toward life itself," he says.
He and the other study volunteers will give blood, undergo more scans and medical tests and eventually donate their brains after they die.
Other non-super agers have already donated their brains to Rogalski's team. Some had problems with dementia or Alzheimer's before they died, and others didn't.
The specimens will give Rogalski a good base of comparison for studying autopsied super-ager brains.
She says brain cells actually live on the outer perimeter of the brain, but with autopsied brains, she's able to look much further down into the organ.
Ultimately, she wants to help people live longer, better lives.
"We're living long, but we're not necessarily living well in our older years, and so we hope that the super aging study can find factors that are modifiable and that we'll be able to use those to help people live long and live well," says Rogalski.
What she finds just might one day unlock the mystery behind aging.
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