November 22, 2016
Study by Langa et al. finds increase in education may lead to improved population brain health
In a story on National Public Radio, Ken Langa says researchers don’t know why education protects against dementia, but there are some theories: “One is that education might actually change the brain itself,” Langa says. “We think that it actually creates more, and more complicated, connections between the nerve cells so that you’re able to keep thinking normally later into life.”
The study, A Comparison of the Prevalence of Dementia in the United States in 2000 and 2012, used a cohort of 21,000 U.S. adults aged 65 or older from the Health and Retirement Study.