Study: electric currents would help the memory of the elderly 1:33
(CNN) --
Despite her volunteer activity, working out at the gym several days a week, socializing frequently with friends and family, reading all kinds of books and doing crossword puzzles every day, Carol Siegler, 85, , is restless.
"I'm bored. I feel like a Corvette being used as a shopping cart," said Siegler, who lives in Palatine, a Chicago suburb.
Siegler is a cognitive "SuperAger", who possesses a brain as sharp as people 20 or 30 years younger.
She is part of an elite group enrolled in Northwestern's Super Aging Research Program, which has been studying the elderly with superior memory for 14 years.
The program is part of the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
“I auditioned twice for 'Jeopardy!'
and I did well enough to be invited to the live auditions.
Then covid hit,” Siegler said.
“Who knows how well I would have done,” he added with a smile.
"What I've told my kids and everyone who's asked me: 'I may know a lot about Beethoven and Liszt, but I know very little about Beyoncé and Lizzo.'"
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What is a Super Ager?
To be a SuperAger, a term coined by Northwestern researchers, a person must be over the age of 80 and willing to undergo extensive cognitive testing.
To be accepted into the study, a person's memory must be as good as or better than that of cognitively normal people in their 50s and 60s.
"SuperAgers are required to have outstanding episodic memory, the ability to recall everyday events and past personal experiences, but beyond that SuperAgers only need to have average performance on the other cognitive tests," said cognitive neuroscientist Emily Rogalski, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
Only about 10% of people who apply to the program meet those criteria, said Rogalski, who developed the SuperAger project.
Carol Seigler with her family.
"It's important to note that when we compare SuperAgers to average people of that age, they have similar IQ levels, so the differences we're seeing aren't just due to intelligence," he said.
Once accepted, colorful 3D brain scans are taken and cognitive tests and brain scans are repeated once a year or so.
Analysis of the data over the years has yielded fascinating results.
Larger tau-free neurons
The brains of most people shrink as they age.
In SuperAgers, however, studies have shown that the cortex, which is responsible for thinking, decision-making and memory, is still much thicker and shrinks more slowly than that of people in their 50s and 60s.
A SuperAger's brain, usually donated to the research program by participants after their death, also has larger, healthier cells in the entorhinal cortex.
It is "one of the first areas of the brain to be 'hit' by Alzheimer's disease," Tamar Gefen, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern, said in an email.
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The entorhinal cortex has direct connections to another key memory center, the hippocampus, and "is essential for memory and learning," said Gefen, the lead author of a November study comparing the brains of older people. deceased with those of cognitively normal older and younger people with people diagnosed with early Alzheimer's.
Carol Seigler, 85 years old.
Credit: Courtesy Jennifer Boyle
SuperAger brains had three times less tau tangles — or abnormal protein formations inside nerve cells — than cognitively healthy brains, according to the study.
Tau tangles are a hallmark sign of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
"We think that the larger neurons in the entorhinal cortex suggest that they are more 'structural' and perhaps better able to resist the formation of neurofibrillary tau tangles," Gefen said.
Gefen also discovered that the SuperAgers' brains had many of the von Economo neurons, a rare type of brain cell, which has so far been found in humans, great apes, elephants, whales, dolphins, and songbirds.
Corkscrew-shaped von Economo neurons are thought to enable rapid communication throughout the brain.
Another theory is that von Economo neurons give humans and great apes an intuitive advantage in social situations.
The von Economo neurons were found in the anterior cingulate cortex, which forms a necklace at the front of the brain that links the cognitive side of reasoning with the emotional side of feeling.
The anterior cingulate is thought to be important in regulating emotions and paying attention, another key to a good memory.
Taken together, these discoveries seem to point to a genetic link as responsible for becoming a SuperAger, Gefen said.
However, she added: "The only way to confirm whether SuperAgers are born with larger entorhinal neurons would be to measure these neurons from birth to death.
That is obviously not possible."
Can the environment influence?
SuperAgers share similar traits, said Rogalski, who is also associate director of the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease at Feinberg.
These people are physically active.
They tend to be positive.
They challenge their brain every day, reading or learning something new;
many continue to work into their 80s.
SuperAgers are also social, surrounding themselves with family and friends, and can often be found volunteering in the community.
"When we compare SuperAgers to normal people their age, we see that they tend to have more positive relationships with others," says Rogalski.
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"This social connectedness may be a trait of SuperAgers that distinguishes them from those who are still doing well but are what we would call a 'average' or normal ager," he said.
Looking back on her life, Carol Siegler recognizes many SuperAger traits in her story.
As a child, during the Great Depression, she learned to spell and play the piano.
She learned to read Hebrew from her grandfather, reading her weekly newspaper in Yiddish.
"I have a great memory. I always have," says Siegler.
"I've always been the kid you could say, 'Hey, what's Sofia's phone number?'
and I knew it by heart."
He graduated from high school at the age of 16 and immediately went to college.
Siegler earned his pilot's license at age 23 and later built a family business in his basement that grew to 100 employees.
At 82, he won the American Crossword Tournament for his age group, which he said was introduced "as a joke."
After seeing an ad for the SuperAger program on television, Siegler also thought it might be funny.
Being chosen as a SuperAger was a thrill, Siegler said, but he knows he was born lucky.
"Someone with the same skills or talents as a SuperAger and who happens to live in a place where there are very few ways to express them, they might never know they have them," he said.
"And that's a real shame."
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