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[Show Online]( [Report Spam]( [Skip to main content]( [Scientific American]( Many Older People Maintain and Even Gain Cognitive Skills [Opinion]( August 20, 2024 4 min read Many Older People Maintain and Even Gain Cognitive Skills Contrary to stereotypes of the doddering elderly, research shows that half of people older than age 70 stay mentally sharp By [Lydia Denworth]( [Illustration of an elderly man pointing up, surrounded by multiple thoughts or ideas] Jay Bendt As I watched my parents’ generation reach their 80s, I was struck by the dramatic dif­fer­ences among them. A handful suffered from dementia, but many others remained cognitively sharp—even if their knees and hips didn’t quite keep up with the speed of their thoughts. That observation runs counter to prejudices about aging, which were high­lighted early in the 2024 presidential race between elderly candidates, but these biases permeate society in general. “The belief about old people is that they’re all kind of the same, they’re doddering, and that aging is this steady downward slope,” says psychologist Laura Car­sten­sen, founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. That view, she says, is a great misunderstanding. Instead research highlights the very differences I noticed. In our 40s, most people are cognitively similar. Divergences in cognition appear around age 60. By 80 “it’s quite dramatically splayed out,” says physician John Rowe, a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Yes, there will be a group diminished by dementia and cognitive decline, but in general the 80-somethings “include the wisest people on the planet,” Carstensen says. Focusing on only those with poor brain health misses more than half the population. Rowe led research showing that in the six years after turning 75, about half of people showed little to no change in their physical, biological, hormonal and cognitive functioning, whereas the other half changed quite a lot. A longer-term study followed more than 2,000 individuals with an average age of 77 for up to 16 years. It showed that the three quarters who did not develop dementia showed little to no cognitive decline. Some of this is related to genetics. Studies of successful aging have shown that genes account for 30 to 50 percent of physical and cognitive changes. But factors like a healthy way of life and good self-­esteem are also consequential. So to an extent, Rowe says, “this is really good news because it means that you are, in fact, in control of your old age.” Research has also busted the myth that there is no upside to aging past 70 or so. “We have found very clearly that there are things that improve with age,” Rowe says. The ability to resolve conflicts strengthens, for instance. Aging is also associated with more positive overall emotional well-being, which means older adults are more emotionally stable than younger adults, as well as better at regulating desires. The normal aging process does bring changes to the brain, says Denise Park, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Dallas. There is some shrinkage in the frontal lobes and some damage to neurons and their connections. Cognitive processing slows down. Yet that slowdown is usually on the order of milliseconds and doesn’t always make a meaningful difference in daily life. And to compensate, older people activate more of the brain for tasks such as reading. “Older adults will often forge additional pathways” for particular activities, Park says. “Those pathways may not be as efficient as the pathways that younger adults use, but they nonetheless work.” Recommended Stories - [Brain Mri sagittal view]( [Brain Scans Reveal Aging Patterns Based on Disease, Alcohol and Smoking]( [Michael Eisenstein]( & [Nature magazine]( - [Senior man crossing the road in New York City]( [Baby Boomers Should Stand Up for New York City’s Congestion Pricing Plan]( [Sarah M. Kaufman]( - [Splitscreen image of Donald Trump (left) and Joe Biden (right)]( [Biden Is Out—And Discussion about Aging Is on the Loose in Politics]( [Jerel Ezell]( - [Elderly man win beige shirt at table holding up a credit card and phone.]( [How Older People Can Stay Safe from Fraud and Scams]( [Laurie Archbald-Pannone]( & [The Conversation US]( The cliché that age brings wisdom is also backed up by science. “Where older adults really shine is in their knowledge,” Park says. If you think of the brain as a computer, “there’s a lot more on the hard disk,” she says. Older adults can draw on their experience and often have much better solutions to problems than younger adults. “Frequently that can give them an edge that is unexpected,” Park says. That edge shows up in decision-making and conflict resolution. One study asked several hundred people to read stories about personal and group conflicts. The study, published in 2010 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, found that participants older than 60 were more likely to emphasize multiple perspectives, to compromise, and to recognize the limits of one’s own knowledge. Car­stensen’s observations reinforce these conclusions. “The decisions that people make as they get older tend to be ones that take into consideration multiple factors and multiple stakeholders,” she says. Older adults are less likely than younger people to see the world in stark black-and-white terms. Car­sten­sen says that when responses in such studies are rated by observers who don’t know how old participants are, the older people’s answers are seen as wiser. Such wisdom may be the result of a gradual shift in perspective, Carstensen says. As we age and become more aware that time is short, we focus more on the positive. A meta-­analysis combining data on more than 7,000 older adults found they were significantly more likely than younger adults to lean toward the positive versus the negative when processing information. The COVID pandemic has showcased this contrast. In a 2020 survey of nearly 1,000 adults, Carstensen and her colleagues found that the older adults were better able to cope with the stresses of the pandemic, despite being one of the groups at highest risk of health complications and death. The fact is that different parts of the body can age at different rates in the same person. Someone who stumbles on stairs may do so because of creaky knees, not cognitive decline. If someone has a healthy brain, age alone might be considered a definite asset. “If you were to take the kinds of decisions presidents make and compare them to the kinds of skills older people have versus younger people, I put my money on older people,” Cars­ten­­sen says. This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American. [Rights & Permissions]( [Lydia Denworth]( is an award-winning science journalist and contributing editor for Scientific American. She is author of [Friendship]( (W. W. Norton, 2020). [More by Lydia Denworth]( [Scientific American Magazine Vol 331 Issue 2](This article was originally published with the title “Improving with Age” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 331 No. 2 (September 2024), p. 76 doi:10.1038/scientificamerican092024-4Dk7tdWNDNVTu8FIRhCbWw [View This Issue]( Popular Stories [Illustration of a woman depicting a pain in her head, in colors of red, orange, yellow and purple] MedicineAugust 20, 2024 New Painkiller Could Bring Relief to Millions—Without Addiction Risk The medication initially known as VX-548 blocks sodium channels in nerves, blocking pain signals before they reach the brain Marla Broadfoot [Close up of model using injecting medication with an injection pen into their stomach in front of a window] PharmaceuticalsAugust 19, 2024 People Are Overdosing on Semaglutide Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy Dosing errors in the medication semaglutide, prescribed as Wegovy and Ozempic, can cause severe or prolonged gastrointestinal issues that require medical attention Allison Parshall [Illustration of a tyrannosaurus as an asteroid strikes the Earth creating the Chicxulub Crater] Planetary ScienceAugust 15, 2024 We Know the Origins of the Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs New evidence points to a carbonaceous asteroid from the outer solar system as the culprit for Earth’s most recent mass extinction Lee Billings [Scientific American Logo] Dark EnergyAugust 19, 2024 Something Is Wrong with Dark Energy, Physicists Say Cosmic surveys suggest the force pulling the universe apart might not be constant after all Rebecca Boyle [Impossible Penrose triangle w/ orange blue and purple sides on brown background] MathematicsAugust 15, 2024 Three of the Strangest Paradoxes in Mathematics A barber shaves all men who don’t shave themselves. 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