Cognitive reserve is our brain’s ability to cope with the various attacks it can suffer. Performing activities that routinely exercise our cognitive abilities (such as those involving reading or arithmetic) can protect us from aging and dementia, increase the plasticity of our brains, and establish new synaptic connections when old ones deteriorate.
Over the years of research it has been observed that the same brain injury does not always have the same impact, so we ask ourselves: What factors influence the onset of dementia and other neurological diseases?
- Many therapies applied to patients with Alzheimer’s disease are based on the fact that the brain is plastic and can benefit from intellectual activity.
- Even at a very advanced age or when the brain is damaged.
One of the references in the research of the cognitive reserve was a famous experiment carried out by neurologist David Snowdon at the University of Kentucky in 1986, which he himself called “the study of the nuns. ” The experiment consisted of studying a group of nuns in a convent and observing the evolution of their cognitive functions, such as memory.
They collected data on the evolution of these functions over 17 years and during post-death autopsies it was found that the brain of one of them, who never presented symptoms of dementia, had the pathological characteristics of a patient of Advanced Alzheimer’s. But how was this possible?
As a result of the results of this study, other research arose that supported the theory that performing intellectually demanding activities can mitigate the effects of brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease and, in turn, promote brain plasticity. to strengthen our brains and make it more resistant to dementia.
Several factors have been associated with obtaining a good cognitive reserve, among the most important:
These are the main factors described in the scientific literature, although other factors have also been taken into account such as diet, in addition, learning new things, developing our creativity, trying to perform the same task in another way, doing head calculations are tasks that can be performed daily and that can increase the size of our cognitive reserve.
For humans, it is never too late to learn, and although childhood is the time when our brain is able to absorb as much information as possible, the truth is that we can continue to increase our abilities. our cognitive reserve is not constant and that much of the value of its dimensions will be conditioned at a more advanced age, so that we can continue to configure it over the years.
All these factors could, according to experts in the field, favor the efficiency of neural networks and compensation by alternative neural networks, in this way we protect ourselves from changes in brain function that tend to be damaged more frequently in accidents.
In addition to protecting us from various diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, slowing its progression or even delaying its onset, learning is also beneficial for recovery from head trauma caused by an accident.
Despite the risk of developing dementia in old age, science has opened the door to a possible preventive solution, which may make us less vulnerable to diseases that appear most often with age.