{"id":220207,"date":"2025-08-15T15:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T20:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/the-first-25-years-of-superager-research-show-cognitive-decline-is-not-an-inevitable-part-of-aging"},"modified":"2025-08-15T15:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T20:03:19","slug":"the-first-25-years-of-superager-research-show-cognitive-decline-is-not-an-inevitable-part-of-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/the-first-25-years-of-superager-research-show-cognitive-decline-is-not-an-inevitable-part-of-aging","title":{"rendered":"The first 25 years of SuperAger research show cognitive decline is not an inevitable part of aging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-first-25-years-of-superager-research-show-cognitive-decline-is-not-an-inevitable-part-of-aging2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For 25 years, scientists at Northwestern Medicine have been studying individuals aged 80 and older\u2014dubbed \u201cSuperAgers\u201d\u2014to better understand what makes them tick.<\/p>\n<p>These unique individuals, who show outstanding memory performance at a level consistent with individuals who are at least three decades younger, challenge the long-held belief that <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/cognitive+decline\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cognitive decline<\/a> is an inevitable part of aging.<\/p>\n<p>Over the quarter-century of research, the scientists have seen some notable lifestyle and personality differences between SuperAgers and those aging typically\u2014such as being social and gregarious\u2014but \u201cit\u2019s really what we\u2019ve found in their brains that\u2019s been so earth-shattering for us,\u201d said Dr. Sandra Weintraub, a professor of psychiatry and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/behavioral+sciences\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">behavioral sciences<\/a> and neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For 25 years, scientists at Northwestern Medicine have been studying individuals aged 80 and older\u2014dubbed \u201cSuperAgers\u201d\u2014to better understand what makes them tick. These unique individuals, who show outstanding memory performance at a level consistent with individuals who are at least three decades younger, challenge the long-held belief that cognitive decline is an inevitable part of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,269,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-life-extension","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}