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Physiological stress seems to reduce the positive impact of cognitive reserve on neurodegeneration
Ok, we know stress is bad for you but what do you mean by cognitive reserve?
The concept of cognitive reserve goes back to some famous studies in the 1980s. In this older people’s brains were scanned (in one particularly well known case the brains of nuns).
Some of these people’s brain scans showed brains that seemed to be in advanced stages of various forms of dementia, however, they seemed to be still highly functional. This mismatch confused researchers.
They then surmised, by looking at their lives, and cognitive and mental activities, that some people who led active, interesting lives, and kept cognitively active developed a “cognitive reserve”.
This reserve seems to protect individuals from the cognitive and mental decline even if the brain is showing signs of neurodegeneration.
And how does stress impact this then? Doesn’t stress increase degeneration?
This is precisely what Manasa Shanta Yerramalla of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden wanted to find out.
