It should have been a good day for Joe Biden. After all, no charges may be filed against the American president following an investigation into his improper handling of secret files. But the official report from Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur was nevertheless devastating.
Hur’s description of the 81-year-old Biden as an “older man with a poor memory” who had “diminished his faculties late in life” provoked an outraged defense from the White House.
The incident has shed new light on the sensitive issue of older politicians and the risks associated with leaders who are long past what most countries consider the standard retirement age. The brutal fact is that the brain is not spared from the physical deterioration that comes with old age, even though the degree of deterioration varies greatly.
Brain scans over the human lifespan show a rise and fall in brain size. From adulthood onwards, the brain begins to shrink as people lose gray and white matter. The gray matter consists largely of brain cell bodies, while white matter is the bundles of nerve fibers that connect neurons to functional brain circuits.
During healthy aging, shrinkage is gradual, but tends to accelerate when people reach their 70s or 80s. In dementia the decline is rapid.
Even with healthy aging, shrinkage has consequences. “If you have less brain matter, it will affect cognition because you lose neurons and the connections between them. The network will no longer be in as good shape as we get older,” says Prof. Tara Spires-Jones of the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh.
“You don’t lose a huge number of neurons, but you do lose the connections between them in different parts of the brain, and that probably plays a big role in why we don’t think very well.”
However, there is no general decline in mental abilities. Memory and cognition tests provide a more nuanced picture. People vary greatly, but common knowledge tends to endure. Vocabulary often improves after retirement age.
However, many other skills deteriorate. Working memory – tasks such as remembering telephone numbers – tends to weaken. People find it more difficult to learn new information. Old brains simply work slower.
The consequences can be greatest when people try to remember information. The knowledge is hidden somewhere in the brain, but retrieving it can be slow in old age. It sometimes happens that an older team takes on a younger team during the University Challenge, says Dennis Chan, a consultant neurologist and professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. “You hear the elderly groaning. They know the answer, but they can’t remember it,” he says.
Hur makes specific, unflattering mentions of Biden’s memory in his 345-page report, noting that it would be difficult to convince jurors that Biden knew he was wrong and speculating that his lawyers likely recall” would emphasize.
Another skill that declines with age is attention; our ability to focus on a particular thought or task. Have you ever stood in the kitchen without knowing why you went there? Or forgotten where you left your car keys? Or put the milk back in the granola cupboard instead of in the refrigerator? Such errors are more common in old age, although there may be reasons other than a faltering brain.
“It can happen more often when you’re older because you have more things to think about,” says Chan. “It could be aging, but there are also other factors, such as having a lot of things on your mind, stress or a lack of sleep. It’s not necessarily pathological.”
While some mental decline lies ahead for most, research points to a number of actions people can take to ensure their brains remain healthy into old age. Doctors advise that what is good for the heart is good for the brain. That means not smoking or drinking excessively, a healthy diet and regular exercise. This helps keep the cardiovascular system healthy, which is crucial for a healthy brain.
But stimulation is also crucial. Chan recommends that people challenge themselves mentally and encourages regular socializing because social interactions are so mentally demanding. He emphasizes the importance of new activities because they force the brain to make new connections.
“Doing something different than normal is a much bigger challenge for the brain,” says Chan. “And the more we engage our brains, the more we encourage them to grow new synapses and new connections, and that will all help.”