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Q4: Can study delay dementia?
Question submitted by Sean

A: The ‘use it or lose it’ argument has attracted considerable debate. But the question is, do people who exercise their brain (ie study) have extra brain capacity, which makes brain exercise easy and gives them the brain reserve to avoid or delay the ravages of dementia? Or, can people use brain exercise to enhance the brain and avoid the ravages of dementia? A real chicken or egg question.

We still don't have the answer to this question, and the perfect experiment is very hard to design. But there have been two very informative studies that suggest that it may be brain reserve that protects us. In a study of nuns in the USA it was shown that those with greater intellectual capacity at an early age had less dementia in old age. Similar results have now been obtained from the Scottish population based on recently discovered historical IQ test data.

But while these experiments seem to suggest that innate brain reserve can protect against dementia, can late life brain activity enhance brain function? Possibly! The only way to test this would be to design a prospective study and follow the study participants for many years, and such studies are now starting to be conducted.

So, should we get studying in late life to protect against dementia? I don't think it can hurt and it may help, but at the moment the real scientific proof remains to be collected.

- Prof Peter Schofield, Executive Director and CEO, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute

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