I recently came across an article circulated by the John Hopkins University in the USA which I thought was worth sharing.
The memory centre in the brains of seniors who volunteered in public schools for two years maintained their size, rather than shrinking as part of the normal aging process, report researchers.
The findings suggest that retirees who take part in meaningful social activity can prevent shrinkage in their brains’ memory centres and avert age-related cognitive problems.
In men, the researchers found, the memory centres actually grew modestly. Those with larger increases in brain volume also saw the greatest improvements on memory tests, showing a direct correlation between brain size and the reversal of a type of cognitive decline linked to increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
“By helping others, participants are helping themselves in ways beyond just feeding their souls,” says study leader Michelle Carlson, associate professor of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “They are helping their brains.”
Removing the ‘cobwebs’
The research, published online in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, studied participants in the Baltimore Experience Corps, a program that brings retired people into public schools. They serve as mentors to young children and work with teachers to help kids learn to read in understaffed school libraries.
“The brain shrinks as part of aging, but with this program we appear to have stopped that shrinkage and are reversing part of the aging process,” Carlson says. “Someone once said to me that being in this program removed the cobwebs from her brain, and this study shows that is exactly what is happening.”
Carlson and her colleagues randomized 111 men and women to either participate in the Experience Corps (58) or not (53). They took MRI scans of the retirees’ brains at enrolment and then again after 12 and 24 months. They also conducted memory tests. Participants were an average of 67.2 years old, were predominantly African American, were in good health, came from neighbourhoods with low socioeconomic status, and had some college education.
Those who were not involved in Experience Corps exhibited age-related shrinkage in brain volumes. Typically, annual rates of atrophy in adults over age 65 ranges from 0.8 percent to 2 percent. The men who were enrolled in Experience Corps, however, showed a 0.7 percent to 1.6 percent increase in brain volumes over two years.
Carlson notes that many cognitive intervention studies last one year or less. In this study, she says, participants were followed for two years, which in this case was long enough to see changes that wouldn’t have been detected after just one year.
This is yet another piece of research which underlines the benefits of being active in our community and in giving something back through volunteering.