In The News: New clues to the 'super-ager' brain and how to stay mentally sharp at 80 and beyond

In The News: New clues to the 'super-ager' brain and how to stay mentally sharp at 80 and beyond

By Lindsey Leake

 This past week, journalist Lindsay Leake wrote about the possibility that there is a visible biological mechanism behind the way “super-ager” brains work differently from others. 

Ms. Leake interviewed the authors of a recent publication in the journal Nature, published February 25, 2026: “Human hippocampal neurogenesis in adulthood, ageing and Alzheimer’s disease.” 

She also interviewed super-agers about their lifestyles and personal ideas regarding what they believe has influenced the development and maintenance of their super-ager status.

Super-agers in this study were defined as people over the age of 80 whose memory testing showed performance consistent with people 30 years younger.

The scientists made some fascinating observations. In the region of the brain most associated with creating and storing new memories—the hippocampus—the presence of cells indicating the process of “neurogenesis” was significantly more common in the super-ager group compared to healthy older adults, and the difference was even more striking between the super-agers and the Alzheimer’s group.

Neurogenesis means that new neurons are being created.

Neurogenesis may be an important scientific correlate to “brain resilience.” Brain resilience is a term often used when attributing the ability of some individuals to delay the onset of symptoms when the brain is experiencing the effects of toxic proteins like amyloid.

The biological basis of resilience needs further study and definition, but these findings are an exciting start.

 The comments of the super-agers about the essence of their abilities and longevity were interesting and are in line with many common attitudes and beliefs. They described lifelong intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm, and many are committed to a healthy diet and physical activity. 

 Yet, there still remains limited scientific evidence that brain exercise causes neurogenesis. Exercise has been shown to promote brain neurogenesis in animal models, and there are many reports that show engaging in games and puzzles is common among super-agers. But animal models do not necessarily lead to reproducible results in humans, and as for activities that super-agers engage in, we still need scientific data to determine whether we are seeing correlation or a causal relationship. 

 People do what they enjoy, and they enjoy doing things they are “good at.” So, super-agers may enjoy engaging in social games and learning new things because they are able to do so, but this does not necessarily mean that doing crossword puzzles promotes neurogenesis. 

We need more studies and data to fully understand how physical and intellectual exercise influence neurogenesis, and today’s report is an excellent start.

More details about the Nature paper:

In the Nature article, the results of an intensive study of tissue from 38 brains donated for study to the University of Illinois and Northwestern University are detailed. Dr. Orly Lazarov was the senior author. The brains selected for analysis were from five groups, adults without cognitive symptoms (one group under the age of 40 and another of older adults), those with early cognitive decline, with a documented diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, and super-agers (over the age of 80 with exceptional memory skills). The six super-ager brains were donated by Northwestern's SuperAging Program, which last year celebrated its 25th anniversary. 

 The researchers examined neurons at different stages of development within the brain tissue samples. Super-agers had twice as many newly formed “immature” neurons as healthy older adults, and when compared with people with Alzheimer’s, super-agers had two and a half times as many. 

BRAIN DONATION MATTERS

This may be an uncomfortable subject for some, but it is important to acknowledge the generosity of the participants in this and other studies. Discovering that neurogenesis is even possible in the adult human brain was a startling finding in 1998, and it only occurred because scientists, led by Dr. Rusty Gage at Salk Institute, were able to study postmortem brains from cancer patients who donated their tissue to science.

The current study under discussion was only possible because of the access to hippocampal tissue from brain banks at Northwestern and University of Illinois.