Nieuws > Nieuws 2008-2009 > The World in 50 years 2
The World in 50 years (2)
Dr. Martin van Boxtel (School of Mental Health and Neuroscience, University of Maastricht) gave us an interesting lecture about “Ageing of the Brain”. It is the last activity of this period about Life Sciences inside the project The World in 50 Years (V4-TTO).
As people get older the quality of life decreases steeply. Now, because of the baby boom, there are going to be a lot of older people in especially the European community. This will make dementia be an extremely prominent illness in the near future
Research shows that all organ systems function worse after the age of 60 or 70 years, but the cardiovascular and loco motor systems are particularly badly affected. More than half of the people over 80 years of age have problems with these systems. Both of them are closely related to the brain.
The Maastricht Ageing Study has been going from 1993, and will keep going until 2009. This is a research project on brain ageing and higher brain functions, the cognitive functions (for example memory and attention). These functions are found in the front part of the brain.
The well-known Stroop Test measures attention: first you read colour-words, then you say the colour of a coloured block, then you have to read a colour word and name the colour that it's written in. The time taken to complete this test was a lot longer with people over the age of 50 or 60 years, and there were more varied times.
Also, the participants are scanned by a scanner, which measures the water content of the brain, and can look at the different 'compartments'. The white matter in the brain is the connections between parts of the brain: the axons and dendrites.
The study was of 75 people, who'd been split into two groups: the people who were cognitively stable, and those who cognitively declined. People who have a smaller hippocampus than the average, are most likely to develop dementia. This part will always have been smaller, it will only cause problems at old age.
Many parts of the brain communicate to perform one task, but over time some of the white matter is changed, the ability to function decreases or the connections disappear, making it difficult and slow to, for example, remember things. Although it may seem as though it's purely genetic, the environment also plays a large role in the development of dementia. Education, lifestyle (diet, smoking, stress, alcohol consumption) and ''status'' can all contribute.
Also, if you keep the brain active then it will postpone or counteract dementia. In the future, brain training or playing on the Wii might make a difference in brain activity. Maybe doctors will prescribe these gaming consoles to the elderly?
There is reason to be optimistic about brain ageing in the future: the brain is constantly adapting to the new environments, the brain may compensate itself (by using the other half more), we know more and more about healthy lifestyles which will protect the brain, and we know that engagement is very important. But, of course, the improvement can only go within biological constraints: humans aren't supposed to live forever.
Dementia, will it be the epidemic of the future? It's a degeneration of the Central Nervous System, a serious impairment of the Higher Brian Function, which affects activities of daily living. Most often seen are Alzheimer's disease and vascular disease.
The amount of people with these diseases is steeply rising. The three options to deal with this rising number are Pharmacological treatments (so medicine), Behavioural techniques (cognitive training, support), and stem cell therapy, although this has not been proven and is extremely expensive.
Discussion Points:
• Who will draw the line between impairment and disease?
As people get older the quality of life decreases steeply. Now, because of the baby boom, there are going to be a lot of older people in especially the European community. This will make dementia be an extremely prominent illness in the near future
Research shows that all organ systems function worse after the age of 60 or 70 years, but the cardiovascular and loco motor systems are particularly badly affected. More than half of the people over 80 years of age have problems with these systems. Both of them are closely related to the brain.
The Maastricht Ageing Study has been going from 1993, and will keep going until 2009. This is a research project on brain ageing and higher brain functions, the cognitive functions (for example memory and attention). These functions are found in the front part of the brain.
The well-known Stroop Test measures attention: first you read colour-words, then you say the colour of a coloured block, then you have to read a colour word and name the colour that it's written in. The time taken to complete this test was a lot longer with people over the age of 50 or 60 years, and there were more varied times.
Also, the participants are scanned by a scanner, which measures the water content of the brain, and can look at the different 'compartments'. The white matter in the brain is the connections between parts of the brain: the axons and dendrites.
The study was of 75 people, who'd been split into two groups: the people who were cognitively stable, and those who cognitively declined. People who have a smaller hippocampus than the average, are most likely to develop dementia. This part will always have been smaller, it will only cause problems at old age.
Many parts of the brain communicate to perform one task, but over time some of the white matter is changed, the ability to function decreases or the connections disappear, making it difficult and slow to, for example, remember things. Although it may seem as though it's purely genetic, the environment also plays a large role in the development of dementia. Education, lifestyle (diet, smoking, stress, alcohol consumption) and ''status'' can all contribute.
Also, if you keep the brain active then it will postpone or counteract dementia. In the future, brain training or playing on the Wii might make a difference in brain activity. Maybe doctors will prescribe these gaming consoles to the elderly?
There is reason to be optimistic about brain ageing in the future: the brain is constantly adapting to the new environments, the brain may compensate itself (by using the other half more), we know more and more about healthy lifestyles which will protect the brain, and we know that engagement is very important. But, of course, the improvement can only go within biological constraints: humans aren't supposed to live forever.
Dementia, will it be the epidemic of the future? It's a degeneration of the Central Nervous System, a serious impairment of the Higher Brian Function, which affects activities of daily living. Most often seen are Alzheimer's disease and vascular disease.
The amount of people with these diseases is steeply rising. The three options to deal with this rising number are Pharmacological treatments (so medicine), Behavioural techniques (cognitive training, support), and stem cell therapy, although this has not been proven and is extremely expensive.
Discussion Points:
• Who will draw the line between impairment and disease?
• Genetically we were not made to live forever!
• Cost of specialized care will skyrocket in the near future
• ‘Double ageing’
• Health for all, or only those who can afford it?
• Downside of scientific optimism! (‘medical model’)
• How far do we go in diagnostics of disease?
• Should we invest in cure, or care?
Tierney Mepham, V4C
24 October 2008
Tierney Mepham, V4C
24 October 2008