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Can we change the way our brains age? Scientists think it’s possible
We’ve known for a while that our lifestyles can help us stay healthier for longer, and now, with new technology that tracks what happens to the brain as we age, scientists are also investigating whether we can slow down brain aging.
One sunny morning, Marieke, a 76-year-old Dutch-born woman, and her husband, Tom, invited me for breakfast at their home in Loma Linda, about an hour east of Los Angeles.
Oatmeal, chai seeds and berries were served, but no processed, sugary cereals or coffee — a breakfast as pure as Loma Linda’s mission was.
Loma Linda is recognized as one of the world’s Blue Zones, places where people live longer than average — in this case, it’s the city’s Seventh-day Adventist community.
They generally avoid alcohol and caffeine, adhere to vegetarian or vegan diets, and consider it their religious duty to take care of their bodies as best they can.
It’s what they call a “health message,” and it’s what’s garnered attention for the city, which has been the subject of decades of research into why its residents are living longer, better lives.
Dr. Gary Fraser of Loma Linda University told me that members of the university’s Seventh-day Adventist Church not only live longer, but also add four to five years to their “healthspan” — the time spent in good health — for women and seven years to their health for men.
Although Marieke and Tom moved to the city later in life, they are both now firmly rooted in the local community.
Loma Linda has no big secrets: its residents simply live incredibly healthy lives, are spiritually inspired, and value the community that their religion provides.
Healthy living talks, music events and exercise classes are held regularly.
I spoke with Judy, who lives in a care home with 112 other people, and she told me that there are always “open-heart, open-minded conversations” there.
“I didn’t realize how important socialization was to the brain. Without it, the brain seems to shrink and disappear,” Judy said.
Science has long recognized the benefits of social interaction and avoiding loneliness.
But it’s now possible to identify whose brains are aging faster than normal, track them and potentially offer better preventative treatments in the future.
As we move towards a more personalized, predictive and preventative healthcare model, leveraging the incredible potential of AI and big data, early diagnosis will be key across all areas of health.
Lara Lewington travels to California to meet with scientists and experts who are studying brain health and investigating whether we can change the way the brain ages.
Andrei Irimia, an associate professor of gerontology and computational biology at the University of Southern California, showed me a computer model that assesses how our brains age and predicts their decline.
He created them using MRI scans, data from 15,000 brains, and the power of artificial intelligence to understand the trajectory of both healthy aging brains and those with the progression of diseases such as dementia.
“This is a very sophisticated way of looking at patterns that humans wouldn’t necessarily know about, but that AI algorithms can detect,” he said.
Of course, Professor Irimia looked into my head.
Before my appointment, I had a functional MRI scan, and after analysing the results, Professor Irimia told me that my brain age was eight months older than my chronological age (although the parts of my brain that control speech apparently haven’t aged as much; I wish I had told him that), but he suggested that the results were within a two-year margin of error.
Private companies are also starting to commercialize the technology: BrainKee offers the service at various clinics around the world, and its founder, Owen Phillips, told me that in the future, it should become easier to get an MRI scan.
“It’s becoming much more accessible to people to have an MRI scan and the images you get from it are getting better and better,” he said.
“I don’t mean to sound nerdy, but technology has gotten to the point where we can look at things much quicker than we could in the past, which means we can understand exactly what’s going on in an individual patient’s brain. AI can help us do that.”
In contrast to Professor Irimia’s analysis of my MRI scans, Brainke estimated that my brain’s biological age had been reduced by one year, and he showed me a 3D-printed model of my brain, which was quite large and I was certain it was life-size.
The aim here is to be able to quantify how effective an intervention is, as well as a more precise approach to treatment.
The dramatic increase in life expectancy over the past 200 years has led to a host of age-related diseases, and I thought that if we lived longer, dementia would strike us all.
Prof Irimia added that although it is unproven, it is a theory that many have been exploring, with the aim to find ways to continue to delay dementia, hopefully beyond the average lifespan.
And all of this leads us to the same point: All the scientists and doctors and people in the Blue Zones say lifestyle is key. Good diet, active living, mental stimulation and happiness are very important for the aging brain.
According to Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and author of the best-selling book “Why We Sleep,” there’s another key factor.
“Sleep is the single most important thing you can do each day to reset your brain and body health,” he preaches. “There’s no function of the mind that doesn’t improve dramatically with sleep, and obviously decreases when you don’t get enough sleep.”
He spoke about our brain’s cleansing system, which works while we sleep to flush out beta-amyloid and tau proteins, “two of the main culprits underlying Alzheimer’s disease.”
Changes in sleep patterns have also been linked to dementia, which Walker explained doesn’t just appear in people in their 60s and 70s – it can start as early as their 30s – so identifying these changes through sleep tracking could provide a “model for prevention in mid-life”.
FaunaBio, a biotech company outside San Francisco, is collecting data on ground squirrels during and after hibernation, a state known as hibernation, when their body temperature drops and their metabolic rate drops to just 1% of normal.
During this time, they appear to be able to regenerate neurons and rebuild connections the brain has lost. The company’s goal is to develop a drug that would replicate this process without humans having to spend half the year underground, even if that’s something some people aspire to.
Untreated depression is also known to increase the risk of dementia, and Professor Leanne Williams of Stanford University has found a way to use MRI scans to “visualize” parts of the brain that are depressed, to see if treatment is working.
This could not only give scientists a better understanding of the underlying causes of mental illnesses such as depression, but also provide a way to quantify patients’ progress in treatment.
Few people trust science to achieve longevity as much as Brian Johnson, a technology entrepreneur who is spending millions to reverse his own biological age.
Dozens of supplements, 19-hour fasts a day, intense training, and a variety of (sometimes controversial) treatments are what he hopes will help him turn back the clock.
But Mildred, the 103-year-old I visited in Loma Linda, spoke emphatically: “You definitely need to watch your diet, that’s true, but I’m not going to say, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to do that.’ Do not touch it!‘” She thinks it’s more important for us to live a little longer, and honestly, she should know that.
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