What Makes SuperAgers So "Super"?

             We’ve all experienced what it’s like to forget. That moment of walking into a room and completely forgetting why you came there. Or, thinking to yourself during the commercial breaks, “What was I watching again?”. You’d think that this type of forgetfulness occurs in older individuals. And you’d be right. But why have I, a healthy 21-year-old, also experienced these moments? Why is it so hard for me to remember what I did last month, last weekend, or even last night? Even more importantly, why are there 85-year-old individuals with memory better than my own? Maybe I’m stressed and overworked, but how does this explain older people who have exceptional memory capacities? Dr. Tamar Gefen had an opportunity to study these amazing individuals whom she calls SuperAgers.

            SuperAgers are 80-year-old (or older) individuals with episodic memory function at a level equal to, or better than individuals twenty to thirty years younger (Gefen et al., 2015). So what makes these SuperAgers so amazing and how is it possible that their memory can be better than someone who is 50 or 60 years of age? In his article for the New York Times, “Studying Oversize Brain Cells for Links to Exceptional Memory”, Carl Zimmer explores the work of Dr. Gefen and her research into these SuperAgers in life, and even in death.

The participants of Gefen’s study were individuals all over the age of 80 who had volunteered for the study at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. During the course of the study, Dr. Gefen had her participants complete various memory and recall tasks and found that they performed better than most younger adults on the same tests. Unfortunately, some of the SuperAgers passed away before the study could be completed. However, some of them had donated their brains for research, so Dr. Gefen was still able to study their extraordinary abilities even after death. She examined the brains of the deceased SuperAgers, and compared them to brains of normal individuals, and found that there was a significant difference in the number of von Economo neurons. But what are von Economo neurons, and what are their functions in terms of memory and learning?

Von Economo (VE) neurons are large brain cells that branch and stretch all over the brain. Although it is not clear what the specific purpose of VE neurons are, researchers like Gefen have predicted that perhaps they are responsible for fast relay in the brain, which is related to memory and learning capabilities. By comparing the number of VE neurons in SuperAgers to that of normal people, Gefen discovered that SuperAgers had a significantly larger amount of VE neurons. So, what does this mean? Do more VE neurons mean better memory? Not exactly…

Doctor John M. Allman has studied VE neurons in great detail for twenty years now. According to Dr. Allman, perhaps VE neurons help us “manage impulses and stay focused on long-term goals” (Zimmer, 2015). So, maybe SuperAgers don’t really have exceptional memory capacities, but exceptional focusing capacities. Whatever the reason, it is no doubt that SuperAgers are an extraordinary group of individuals who defy the normal aging process. Perhaps with further research, scientists will be able to figure out how to increase production of VE neurons in the brain’s of normal individuals so that we all can become SuperAgers.

Works Cited:

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/science/studying-oversize-brain-cells-for-links-to-exceptional-memory.html?_r=0

Study: Gefen, T., Peterson, M., Papastefan, S. T., Martersteck, A., Whitney, K., Rademaker, A., . . . Geula, C. (2015). Morphometric and Histologic Substrates of Cingulate Integrity in Elders with Exceptional Memory Capacity. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(4), 1781-1791. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2998-14.2015

Images: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JXOOOtnow-U/maxresdefault.jpg

http://www.awaken.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/von-Economo-neuron.jpg