Recommend this informative video on the science of brain health and cognitive decline by Eric Kandel, and produced by Big Think.
Key Points
- There are two major forms of learning: implicit (non-declarative) or explicit (declarative).
- The simple form of learning is learning of perceptual and motor skills. This implicit learning, which does not involve conscious participation, involves a number of systems in the brain. In the simplest cases it just reflects pathways themselves, but in other cases it could involve the amygdala for emotional learning, and the basal ganglia for some motor tasks. Although the hippocampus is not in any fundamental way involved.
- Complex learning involves the hippocampus and requires conscious participation. It involves learning about people, places and objects.
- The hippocampus is not critical throughout the lifetime of the memory, but it’s critical for the initial storing and consolidation of the memory.
- Life long learning is extremely important and the more we learn about life span and healthspan, the more important we realize it is.
- Acquiring new knowledge is an exercise of the brain.
- As people age, they are susceptible to one of two kinds of cognitive declines:
- Alzheimer’s disease, which begins in the 70s, but becomes almost an epidemic when people are in their 90s.
- Age-related memory loss. It differs from Alzheimer’s disease in the sense that it starts in mid-life, involves a different part of the brain, starting in the dentate gyrus. Alzheimer’s disease, on the other hand, starts in the entorhinal cortex. You can prevent age-related memory loss, and to some degree you might be able to reverse it. It can be prevented through social involvement, cognitive involvement, learning new skills (language), exercise and a healthy diet.
- Exercise increases bone mass, increasing osteocalistene, which helps prevent memory loss. This can also be achieved through blood transfusion from younger individuals.