2023-09-11 08:20:37
by Anna Meldolesi
Research shows that a mind trained over the years leads to better functional recovery. Among the factors that contribute to strengthening neurobiological capital: studying, having stimuli at work, activities such as reading, going to the cinema, exercising memory
Use it or you will lose it. Use it or lose it. Let’s talk about the brain, or rather its cognitive potential. Studying, engaging in creative work, living in a stimulating environment are fundamental elements with which everyone can build a sort of neurobiological capital, the cognitive reserve, that little treasure of resilience which, over the years, proves precious for preventing and counteracting damage of aging and diseases that could affect our brain: Alzheimer’s and stroke, but also head trauma, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia.
Brain tumors are now added to the list, thanks to a study on 700 patients operated on by neurosurgeons from the University Health Authority of Udine.
I study
Imagine two people affected by an identical tumor and undergoing the same type of surgery. What differentiates them is the context from which they come: one interrupted her studies early and works in a repetitive job in a small town, the other graduated, has an intellectually demanding profession and lives in a big city. The second patient will recover better than the first. We still don’t know how or why, but it’s as if he had set aside a surplus of brain plasticity to draw on when needed.
Not just genetics
The brain is influenced by life, Raffaella Rumiati of Sissa in Trieste, who coordinated the work published in Brain Communication, tells us.
Cognitive reserve, like intelligence, has a genetic component but seems to depend even more on socioeconomic variables. The group indexed it with the help of the economist Gianni De Fraja and evaluated the performance of each patient also taking into account her biography.
Education has the strongest effect, followed by incentives at work. Residence has a smaller effect but influences relationships and daily challenges, explains the neuroscientist. Combined together, these factors have a protective effect: The higher the reserve, the better the test performance, net of tumor characteristics.
Cognitive dysfunctions associated with tumors
The impact of cognitive reserve has been explored in dementia, aging and other conditions
. Until now, its role in mitigating cognitive dysfunction associated with tumors has been overlooked, because there are many factors to take into account, including lesion volume, affected hemisphere, affected region and type of tumor, Yaakov Stern of Columbia University tells us, the father of the concept of cognitive reserve, who appreciates the way in which the Italian group began to unravel the problem: They are leading experts in the study of the impact of tumors on neuro-cognitive dysfunction, therefore ideal people to investigate whether cognitive reserve can mitigate this relationship. According to the neuropsychologist, this contribution opens the doors to the hope of developing personalized prevention strategies and rehabilitation interventions, tailored to individual differences.
Strengths
The newly published research, in particular, has two strengths: a much larger sample than the few previous studies and the variety of tests, carried out by Barbara Tomasino, clinical psychologist at Irccs Medea and first author of the work. To measure the patients’ cognitive activity, with reference to the right hemisphere, the left and both, language, comprehension, visual memory and also fluid intelligence were assessed, which does not concern accumulated notions but the ability to solve new problems. , explains Rumiati.
How to stimulate mental activity
Future studies will also involve healthy subjects to try to understand the biological mechanisms of the resilience reserve and identify the time windows to best enhance it throughout life. Experiments with specific training (for example with video games) have given disappointing results because they do not improve the general potential. What does Rumiati recommend to keep the brain in shape? Stimulate mental activity in all ways: cinema, reading, languages, shopping without a list to exercise your memory, introducing variations to your work routine. After retirement, keep busy with what you like.
The hypothesis
The theory of cognitive reserve is a revised and corrected form of the idea of brain reserve proposed in the late 1980s by Robert Katzman, who, performing post-mortem studies on residents of a Bronx nursing home, discovered evident Alzheimer’s damage in the brain. of 10 women who had high cognitive test scores before they died. The fact that their brains were very large led him to hypothesize that perhaps these people could afford to lose more brain matter before suffering the effects. Today we are thinking of more dynamic mechanisms: the key seems to be in the efficiency of the connections between neurons rather than in their number.
The concept of cognitive reserve involves the ability to actively compensate for damage and helps explain why more than 25% of older adults who do not show cognitive decline have brain damage that meets the criteria for an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Because very bright people take longer to compensate, when they are diagnosed they often have very extensive degeneration and undergo a more rapid decline than other sufferers.
September 11, 2023 (modified September 11, 2023 | 08:14)
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