Time To Use Reserves - Cognitive Reserves That Is!

It happens to be NCAA basketball tournament time. I couldn’t help but make an analogy of the brain and the best of the best basketball teams. Basketball is a very physical game requiring a lot of stamina. The demands are so great that the starters must be rested from time to time in order to maintain their high level of play. If the reserves (bench players) are not as good in their play then the team suffers. It is important to have exceptional reserves in order to allow the edge needed for a win.

How does this apply to our brains? Well, the brain takes on a lot of wear and tear as we get older. Aging itself creates challenges to the operation of brain function. Add additional challenges of lifestyle, environment, genetics and injury and the brain must fight to keep up with normal brain function. Should a neurodegenerative disease attack a brain in a vulnerable state the declines become apparent early. The ability to offset some of these challenges lies with Cognitive Reserve.

Brain Health Daily News defines cognitive reserves as “how much cognitive capacity you have built up or saved over time through brain challenges and workouts to counter brain decline either due to disease, injury or age or related losses”. So, cognitive reserve is the capacity of the brain to operate normally even when some function is disrupted. We start out with a lot of cognitive reserve, but as we get older it too declines. There is great variability in cognitive reserve between people due to differences in genetics, occupation, lifestyle, leisure activities, stress and other life experiences. Dr. Yaakov Stern, through his Cognitive Reserve theory, states that the variability of cognitive reserve among individuals may explain why some individuals with full pathology of Alzheimer’s (accumulation of plaques and tangles in their brains) can maintain normal lives until they die while others with the same accumulation of plaques and tangles show severe symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Specifically then, what is the composition of cognitive reserve? Cognitive reserve can be differentiated into two types: brain reserve and cognitive reserve. Brain reserve refers to the actual brain structure that may increase tolerance to pathology. Brain structure involved in cognitive reserve includes the number and size of neurons derived from brain volume, and the density of synapses.

Cognitive reserve refers to the differences between people and how life tasks are performed that might benefit some people in being more resilient to brain changes than others (ncbi.nim.nih.gov). This is traditionally measured by overall ability levels, and lifestyle factors, such as education, occupation, and cognitive, social, and leisure activities (Jicha and Rentz, 2013).

How do you increase your cognitive reserves as you get older? There are many ideas but they all come down to lifestyle. Stretch you mental challenges by being original in your thoughts and then discuss ideas. Lifetime experiences such as education, occupations, and leisure activities impact us through the aging process. They can be determinants on dementia risk. Activities like physical exercise, lifelong learning and social connectedness help build cognitive reserve to protect us. This type of lifestyle started earlier is always better than later; but the brain is resilient and will benefit from these activities no matter how old you might be. The more activities you participate in, the better. The effect of building cognitive reserve increases over time.

Cognitive reserve is so important to your brain function because it makes the mind stronger at enabling it to find ways to counter the disease-related loss of functioning. So the moral of this story is – if you take care of your brain it will be able to suppress neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s.

Batter,M. (25July 2011). The incredible shrinking brain. Retrieved March 25, 2105 from http://news.sciencemag.org.

Building cognitive reserve: Brain Health Daily News. Retrieved March 24, 2015.

Jicha, G. and Rentz, D. (13Mar2013). Cognitive and brain reserve and the diagnosis and treatment of alzheimer’s disease. Neurology, March 26, 2013, 80(13) p. 1180-1181. Retrieved March 25, 2015 from http://www.neurology.org/content/80/13/1180.

Stern, Y. (2012 Nov.). Cognitive reserve in aging and alzheimer’s disease. Lancet Neurology 2012 Nov. 11(11) p.1006-1012. Retrieved March 24, 2015 from http://nbci.nim.nih.gov.

Have questions or interested in learning more? Contact Pat at patricia@myboomerbrain.com

#brainaging #cognitivereserve #lifestyle