Aging Outliers Offer Valuable Lessons
Emily Rogalski, a University of Chicago scientist, studies both superagers (whom she defines as people over age 80 with memory performance at least as good as an average 50- to 60-year-old), as well as individuals at the other end of the aging spectrum—those with PPA, a disease that renders people unable to speak beginning in middle age. She believes these two extreme, and extremely rare groups, offer lessons in both brain resiliency and brain vulnerability.