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Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Reserve: Points of Contact

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Abstract

The high risk of cognitive disorders in elderly and senile people necessitates the search, on the one hand, for their causes, and on the other, for the possibility of their prevention. Thus, the concept of cognitive reserve, which implies a set of quantitative parameters of the brain and its ability to maintain high functional activity during aging and against the background of the age-related brain pathology, has become widespread in recent years. The material presented in the article is based on a review of the scientific literature and highlights two main points concerning the possibility of the preservation of the cognitive reserve: gender and educational factors. The article points to the different potential of women and men associated with the structural and functional features of the central nervous system in representatives of different sexes and the special role of the educational process supported throughout life. The authors’ position on the need to separate the concepts of education and erudition, i.e., the level of general culture, and to create a convenient tool for the determination of the latter is indicated. This, in turn, would assist in the development of a cognitive reserve model aimed at the prevention of the transformation of physiological cognitive aging into a pathological one.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ural State Medical University, 620028, Ekaterinburg, Russia

    V. S. Myakotnykh, A. P. Sidenkova, E. S. Ostapchuk, I. A. Kulakova, N. A. Belikh & T. A. Borovkova

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  1. V. S. Myakotnykh
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Correspondence to V. S. Myakotnykh.

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Translated by G. Levit

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Myakotnykh, V.S., Sidenkova, A.P., Ostapchuk, E.S. et al. Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Reserve: Points of Contact. Adv Gerontol 10, 356–362 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079057020040165

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