Question: Does age affect other parts of the brain as well as memory?

Paul Matusz answered on 14 Nov 2018:

Hi ScientistShona (cool nick BTW ;),

Yeah, most definitely – to both parts of your question! This is because we cannot have cognitive skills like memory without them being created by our brains. Aging (I will tell you about healthy aging) has a wide range of effects on the brain and our abilities to think, see, speak etc. – as it does on our body! There are certain most typically associated changes in the brain associated with aging – like parts of our brains actually shrink (there are fewer cells) and the connections that neurons have across different parts of the brain may not work as well. And this of course has an effect on our memory – so part of normal aging is people not remembering where they put things, what are names of certain people (but that’s typiocal for us all!) etc. etc.
At the same time, a skill called “crystallised inteligence” develops steadiily as we turn from a child into a young and then older adult – so older adults compared to younger adults can often solve problems better, as their brains are filled with different types of knowledge, and problems and how to solve them.
Naturally abnormal aging like dementia has much more profound and negative effects on the brain and memory.