When does the brain start to slow down?
The speed of cognitive processes was unchanged up to the age of 60
Olga Ivanova, Naked Science
It is widely believed that the speed of cognitive processes in our brain begins to slow down in our youth, having passed its peak around the age of 20. Indeed, many may recall that at the age of 20, various tasks seemed to be thought out faster than in more mature years. This is evidenced by various scientific studies.
Scientists from Heidelberg University (Germany) do not deny this, but after conducting their own research with the participation of more than 1.2 million people, they found a new reason for slowing down cognitive functions that is not related to the speed of the brain. They presented their findings in the journal Nature Human Behavior (von Krause et al., Mental speed is high until age 60 as revealed by analysis of over a million participants).
The experiment took place online. The task of the volunteers was to classify certain words and images that appeared on the screen by pressing the "correct" keys on the keyboard. And what did the researchers see? That the time of such a response was indeed slower in subjects older than 20 years compared with younger participants.
However, according to experts, this was hardly due to a slowdown in their cognitive processes. Using mathematical models (Bayesian hierarchical modeling), scientists came to the conclusion that such a phenomenon lies beyond the speed of the brain and may be associated with other factors. First of all, due to the fact that with age, people who have received a certain life experience become more cautious and, in principle, make certain decisions more slowly.
And with age, a person's physical reflexes slow down, so he may react more slowly to something (for example, pressing buttons on the keyboard) for purely physiological reasons. But after 60 years, cognitive processes in the brain really begin to slow down. Although it happens in different ways for different people: someone's degree of "mental" speed is still very high, someone's is quite low.
The reasons for this are still unknown to scientists — they hope to get an answer to this question in future studies. In addition, the work of experts has shown that the speed of the brain is approximately at the same level in a wide variety of population groups. It does not depend much on gender, race or level of education. Scientists, however, emphasize that for final conclusions, additional research and the study of the response rate during the execution of other tasks by the subjects are needed, as usual.
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