Special Aged

03/12/18 • 19 min

It's pretty extraordinary for people in their 80s and 90s to keep the same sharp memory as someone several decades younger, and now scientists are peeking into the brains of these "superagers" to uncover their secret. The work is the flip side of the disappointing hunt for new drugs to fight or prevent Alzheimer's disease. Parts of the brain shrink with age, one of the reasons why most people experience a gradual slowing of at least some types of memory late in life, even if they avoid diseases like Alzheimer's. But it turns out that superagers' brains aren't shrinking nearly as fast as their peers'. And autopsies of the first superagers to die during the study show they harbour a lot more of a special kind of nerve cell in a deep brain region that's important for attention. Jeff and Anthony remember to try and stay on topic.

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Jeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata

Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboni

Today’s story was sent in by Katherine Tuck: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/superager-brain-1.4548868

If you’ve seen a story you think belongs on the show, send it to [email protected], post in on our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/WeHaveConcerns/ or leave it on the subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/wehaveconcerns

GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns

Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop

Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen.

Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher link: http://bit.ly/stitcherwhconcerns

Or, you can send us mail! Our address:

We Have Concerns c/o WORLD CRIME LEAGUE 1920 Hillhurst Ave #425 Los Angeles, CA 90027-2706

Jeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata

Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboni

Today’s story was sent in by Katherine Tuck: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/superager-brain-1.4548868

Previous Episode

Black Hole Fun

If you ever fell into a black hole, your body would most likely be ripped into shreds and become 'spaghettified' - At least that's the theory put forward by most physicists today. But a new study is challenging that claim by suggesting there may be some black holes that you could survive - although doing so may put you into a strange reality.
These black holes would destroy your past life and trap you in a parallel universe with an infinite number of possible futures. Jeff and Anthony weigh their options.

GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns

Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop

Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen.

Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher link: http://bit.ly/stitcherwhconcerns

Or, you can send us mail! Our address:

We Have Concerns c/o WORLD CRIME LEAGUE 1920 Hillhurst Ave #425 Los Angeles, CA 90027-2706

Jeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata

Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboni

Today’s story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5445037/Black-holes-wipe-past.html

Next Episode

Logo Mindstorms

Humans assign value to brands. Brands represent wealth, strength, and yes, sex. We are our brands. And for some rhesus macaques in a lab, one brand, Adidas, represents monkey genitalia. The researchers paired dominant male faces, subordinate male faces, and female hindquarters with some brand logos, then paired scrambled images with other brand logos. “We know how social rewards can be processed differently compared to primary rewards like food or water,” the study’s first author M. Yavuz Acikalin in the Stanford Graduate School of Business told Gizmodo. “Essentially, what this is looking at, ‘is can monkeys also associate the rewards with arbitrary stimuli, and create associations more directly though conditioning.’” Jeff and Anthony discuss monkeys and business.

GET BONUS EPISODES, VIDEO HANGOUTS AND MORE. VISIT: http://patreon.com/wehaveconcerns

Get all your sweet We Have Concerns merch by swinging by http://wehaveconcerns.com/shop

Hey! If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate/review it on whatever service you use to listen.

Here’s the iTunes link: http://bit.ly/wehaveconcerns And here’s the Stitcher link: http://bit.ly/stitcherwhconcerns

Or, you can send us mail! Our address:

We Have Concerns c/o WORLD CRIME LEAGUE 1920 Hillhurst Ave #425 Los Angeles, CA 90027-2706

Jeff on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffcannata

Anthony on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acarboni

Today’s story was sent in by James Gerstner: https://www.popsci.com/how-much-super-bowl-sweat

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