Research on brains of the 80-plus holds the answers. Adults who are age 80 and older are at greater risk for memory decline than younger seniors. In the last several years, scientists have researched the brains of these older adults in an effort to learn whether cognition always declines with age. The researchers found that a small number of these seniors have the memory ability of adults who are 30 years younger. This cohort has been dubbed “super-agers,” by gerontologists. Research published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience outlined interesting new findings with respect to the brains of these super-agers. In comparing cat scans of their brains to those with “normal” memory ability, the scientists found that the super-agers have more physical volume in the parts of their brain that are important for memory. The brains of super-agers also show less atrophy in its “white matter” than those of their peers. A separate study examined how biological factors and family history may be relevant when studying the super-ager. Dr. Emily Rogalski, from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, uses a more holistic analysis: “We all encounter stress and have the opportunity to react in different ways. One reaction can be to rise above and it seems like these SuperAgers are particularly good at really identifying the best in a situation and figuring out how to move on,” she noted. There is no real data on how many super-agers there are in the US, but they are “relatively rare,” according to Rogalski. She believes that far less than 10% of the people she sees end up meeting the criteria.