Some people in their 80s and 90s have the memory of someone decades younger. These “superagers” are a puzzle — and a new study rules out one tempting explanation: it isn't simply that they inherited Alzheimer's-resistant genes.
Researchers at the University of Chicago's HAARC Center and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), writing in Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, compared the DNA of 142 superagers with 89 cognitively average older adults across five sites in the U.S. and Canada.
What they found
Examining the APOE gene and three polygenic risk scores, the team found no genetic distinction between the superagers and their ordinary-memory peers. In other words, their DNA looks much like everyone else's their age.
If genetics explained it, “identifying SuperAgers might be as simple as performing genetic testing rather than the comprehensive cognitive evaluations we currently use,” said Emily Rogalski, PhD.
So what makes them special?
Related work has found superagers possess “super neurons” — significantly larger cells in memory-related brain regions than typical older adults. That suggests the answer lies in brain resilience and structure rather than an inherited genetic shield. The upshot for the rest of us: exceptional cognitive aging may owe more to modifiable, biological factors than to the luck of the genetic draw.