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A leading science writer examines how our brains improve in middle age. Pulitzer Prizewinning science writer Barbara Strauch explores the latest findings that demonstrate how the middleaged brain is more flexible and capable than previously thought. In fact, new research from neuroscientists and psychologists suggests that the brain reorganizes, improves in important functions, and even helps us adopt a more optimistic outlook in middle age. We recognize patterns faster, make better judgments, and find unique solutions to problems. Part scientific survey, part howto guide, The Secret Life of the Grown up Brain is a fascinating glimpse at our surprisingly talented middleaged minds.
[...]... physically changes the brain, which kinds of experience alter the brain for the better, and what it really means to be a competent manager, a prudent pilot, or a gifted teacher There are recent findings, too, that show how the middle- aged brain rather than giving up and giving in—adapts As we age, our brains power up, not down, and use more of themselves to solve problems And it is those with the highest... said The middle- aged brain That’s really interesting because sometimes it really seems like there’s not much left up there You know, the synapses are not synapping like they used to.” Then, when I looked down at his desk, there was this complicated chart, full of boxes and arrows and circles His middle- aged brain, with its unsynappy synapses, had taken on what was then the most complex issue the company... who insist that their brains may miss a beat now and then simply because their circuits are overloaded “I hate it when people say they are having a senior moment,” said one woman I know in her early sixties “People lose their keys when they are my age and they think it’s their aging brain But plenty of teenagers lose their keys, and when they do, they just, well, they just say they lost their keys.” Such... as I reached middle age—landing unprepared on the foggy planet of lost keys and misplaced thoughts—that this, sadly, was the case But then I noticed something else At work, at home, with friends, I was surrounded by people who knew what they were doing These were people, also in the thick of middle age, who, despite not remembering the name of the restaurant they just ate in or the book they just read,... when they were in their twenties In four out of six of the categories tested—vocabulary, verbal memory, spatial orientation, and, perhaps most heartening of all, inductive reasoning—people performed best, on average, between the ages of forty to sixty-five The highest level of functioning in four of the six mental abilities considered occurs in midlife,” Willis reports in her book Life in the Middle, ... cluster of buildings tucked into a forest of red-woods To get there, you turn off Highway 1, south of San Francisco, leave the Pacific Ocean behind, and head up a mile-long road that winds its way up to the campus In the early 1970s, even those of us at nearby Berkeley considered Santa Cruz the most laid-back place of all Of course, much of that has changed As Silicon Valley money flowed over the mountains,... be one of the biggest advantages a brain can have And the positive spin may have evolved because it works well for the species in general There is a well-known thesis, sometimes called the “Grandmother Hypothesis,” that postulates that humans and primates that had helpful, living grandmothers in their group lived longer As Carstensen sees it, grandmothers with a brighter outlook gave the group a greater... reached in middle age “Contrary to stereotypical views of intelligence and the naïve theories of many educated laypersons, young adulthood is not the developmental period of peak cognitive functioning for many of the higher order cognitive abilities For four of the six abilities studied, middle- aged individuals are functioning at a higher level than they did at age 25.” When I first learned of this,... perfect, the tests are a fair indicator of how well we do in certain everyday tasks, from deciphering an insurance form to planning a wedding And what the researchers found is astounding During the span of time that constitutes the modern middle age—roughly age forty through the sixties the people in the study did better on tests of the most important and complex cognitive skills than the same group of people... action, revving up the rest of the body to make that crucial call: fight or flight? The amygdala is a primitive part of the brain It is small (Well, technically that should read, “They are small.” You have two, one on either side of your brain, and in proper plural they are called amygdalae, or “almonds” in Latin, named for their shape and size.) So what could this ancient alert system, set up to keep early . member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © Barbara Strauch, 2010 All rights reserved LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Strauch, Barbara. The secret life of the grown-up brain. one of the editors at my newspaper that I planned to write about the middle-aged brain, he laughed, thinking of his own fifty-eight-year-old talents. “Oh, my,” he said. The middle-aged brain. . that mean? How is such a thing stored in a brain and made use of in the day-to-day life of a fifty-year-old mother of teenagers or a sixty-year-old professor? For many years, what we call experience