Brain: Are we getting older or wiser?

Attended a course on the Ageing Brain, and what we can do to keep it fit. Here are my thoughts and notes:

One thing we can be sure about, is that we all are getting older. But what does that really mean? Will we just get greyer, slower, forgetful, as time goes by?

That depends on what we do with our brain, or more to the point, our thinking. If the latest research has shown anything, it is that we do not know nearly as much as we think we do about the human brain and its capacity. We can only witness how people in challenging environments and circumstances rise above doctors and scientists expectations. And then there are people who deteriorate without any biological evidence to confirm it.

There does not seem to be a direct correlation between brain functions and brain tissue loss. Ac-coma is still something of a mystery, all we can do is keep the person alive and hope some stimuli cause the blockage between the primitive brain to the rest of the brain to clear.

But what about what we do know, what we can do to keep your brains healthy and functional? Cognitive health seems to be more linked with lifestyle than genetics. Our lifestyle includes the amount of exercise we get, what we eat, drink, with whom we socialise, and having a good nights rest.

Stimulation of the brain is not just about our quality of thinking when we are by ourselves, interacting with technology or virtual social networks. These things alleviate loneliness to some extent, but it does not replace the social interaction we seem to need as human beings.

Having to deal with people in a social setting seem to stimulate the brain in different ways, we need to consider others feelings, think of different scenarios in a situation, think on our feet about what we say and do, and cannot just give over to our impulses.

According to Wikipedia, the definitions of psychoanalysis terms used by Freud can be defined as:

Id: contains everything that is inherited, that is present at birth, is laid down in the constitution -- above all, therefore, the instincts, which originate from the somatic organisation, and which find a first psychical expression here (in the id) in forms unknown to us".

Ego: psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality-testing, control, planning, defense, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory.

Super-Ego: The Super-ego can be thought of as a type of conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt.