Having a purpose in life strengthens the brain’s ability to cope with stressors and cognitive aging.
- New research suggests that having a purpose in life may promote cognitive resilience in 50-somethings.
- Cognitive resilience is the brain’s ability to cope with stressors, injury, disease, and aging.
- The study shows that certain regions of the brains of people who feel useful displayed more activity than in those without a goal. Greater functional connectivity in these areas is positively correlated with cognitive performance.
Children who have left home, fewer professional opportunities, separation, retirement… if you have the growing impression of being less useful over the years, do not hesitate to find new objectives or occupations. A study, presented by the Marcis Institute for Aging Research Hebrew Seniorlife, shows that having a purpose in life promotes cognitive resilience in middle-aged adults.
“Cognitive resilience refers to the brain’s ability to cope with stressors, injury, and pathology, and to resist the development of symptoms or disabilities”specify the authors of the research published in the journal Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.
Having a goal activates brain connections
To find out the impact of having a purpose in life on brain health, scientists studied the records of 624 adults who participated in the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative cohort. The average age of the participants was 53.71 years. Questionnaires were used to assess their sense of usefulness, their expectations and their emotional state.
Their cognitive status – a measure reflecting, among other things, brain load (white matter lesions) and functional connectivity at rest – was also noted.
By comparing these different data, the researchers found that people with a strong sense of purpose or goals to achieve had greater functional connections within the “default mode” brain network. That is to say the area that activates when you give free rein to your thoughts. Among other things, it plays an important role in memory and emotions. There was also more activity in the frontal cortex, the hippocampal formation, the midcingulate region, and the rest of the brain. “Greater functional connectivity in some of these nodes is positively correlated with cognitive performance”specify the researchers in their communicated.
Feeling useful in your fifties protects the brain
“The current data extend previous findings found in advanced age and pathological aging, such as Alzheimer’s disease, revealing that having a strong sense of purpose may confer resilience already in middle age,” says the author, Dr. Kilian Abellaneda-Pérez, who works at the Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut (Barcelona).
“The fact that individuals in the high life purpose group had greater connectivity between nodes in the ‘default mode’ brain network (…), suggests that such changes in the functional organization of the brain may represent the mechanism by which a higher purpose in life promotes brain health and protects it from dysfunction, even stress, adversity, and disease.” adds Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, medical director of the Deanna and Sidney Wolk Center for Memory Health at Hebrew SeniorLife.
For the researchers, their work shows that “each of us, with proper guidance and support, can develop and maintain a strong sense of purpose and thereby contribute to our brain health and well-being”.
