2006 Eureka Prize Win for Dementia Research
Be more mentally active
Dr Michael Valenzuela, a clinical neuroscience research fellow at the University of NSW has won the 2006 Eureka Prize for his work on how maintaining an active mind can ward off the onset of dementia.
In one of his studies of 29,000 people he found that a lifetime of complex mental activity almost halved the risk of dementia. A separate study used repeated brain scans of healthy people aged over 60. This found that those who led mentally stimulating lives had less shrinkage of the hippocampus- the area of the brain associated with memory and the first area affected by Alzheimer’s.
Dr Valenzuela said that even for those well past middle age, there was still a benefit to be obtained from keeping the brain clicking.
“There is a pretty clear message. When you get to post retirement age, you can still modify your risk of dementia by being more mentally active,” he said.
He is planning a website in the next few months that will enable people to determine their risk by answering 30-40 questions. People could ask themselves how often they participated in social activity or exercised.
He said a healthy brain may not be something that could be achieved alone. Mental activity involving getting together with people seemed very important.
The key to fighting dementia was maintaining a mix of activities including physical ones, he said.
