2023-06-06 04:41:44
For a long time, you have dreamed of learning to speak Spanish, to dance, to play the piano… But you can’t get started, for lack of time, lack of motivation or, quite simply, because, after all, you’re not really 20 anymore. Think again ! If you put in the effort to try, your brain will thank you: Rachel Wu’s team at the University of California, Riverside has just shown that any learning at an advanced age is not only possible, but also improves cognitive faculties to the point of regaining those of an undergraduate university student.
To prove this, the researchers carried out two independent, but similar experiments, first with 6 and then 27 people aged 66 and 69 on average and suffering from no pathological cognitive impairment other than a few difficulties encountered in aging, such as a decreased attention or memory, which is called “age-related cognitive decline”. Initially, each subject took cognitive tests evaluating his executive functions – short-term memory, planning, attention, reasoning, inhibition… – and his long-term memory called “verbal episodic”, then learned, as a child or a student would, for three months and for at least six hours a week, three new skills that he had chosen: a language, drawing, a musical instrument, photography, the use a digital tablet…
Result: all the volunteers saw their cognitive functions improve, many of them even multiplying their test scores by two or three. And this from the end of the three months of learning, but also six months and a year later, the benefits lasting. Many people’s performance even continued to increase over time after training stopped.
This study is a first in a real situation and over the long term: the participants “studied” at home or by taking lessons during the three months. The conclusions of this work confirm that the brain remains plastic at any age, capable of remodeling itself to assimilate new skills, and that any stimulation of neurons via acquiring a new skill – linguistic, motor, mental – “rejuvenates” them, thus slowing down age-related cognitive decline. So let’s not be afraid of criticism or failure: we are able to learn even as we age and it’s a makeover for our brains.
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