prolog
The changing landscape of middle age

Chapter 1: The Powers That Be

Am I going crazy?
Sometimes, though, the gains outweigh the losses.

The best brain of our lives
A slightly slower, but much more powerful brain

A brighter place
I'm so glad I'm not young anymore

experience, judgment, wisdom
Do we really know what we are talking about?

Changing middle age
The conspiracy of midlife crisis

Chapter 2: What Happens Inside the Brain

Things that change over time
Defects that the brain learns to handle

Two brains are better than one
Especially in one head

Extra brain power
Reserves available when needed

Chapter 3: A Healthier Brain

Keep moving and defend your base.
Exercise trains the brain

Foods that are good for your mind
And some other substances

Brain Gym
Tightening the circuit

Epilogue
A new place for a better, longer life

Acknowledgements
Translator's Note
References
Search

A middle-aged brain that sees through to the core!
The middle-aged brain is smarter, calmer, and happier.

“Indeed, researchers have learned a great deal about the middle-aged brain in the past few years.
They found that the middle-aged brain, despite some bad habits, is at its peak and stays at its peak for longer than we can imagine.
The middle-aged brain helps us navigate life, cutting through the confusion to find answers, knowing who to ignore and what to ignore, when to turn left and when to turn right.
“The middle-aged brain is still great, and it’s still adapting.”
- From the 'Prologue'

Middle-aged people, trust your brain!
Even if you blink, the brain of a middle-aged person is the smartest!

“The middle-aged brain is better than the brain you had when you were twenty.” Some might respond to this claim with, “That’s crazy,” but cutting-edge brain science claims that the middle-aged brain is smarter, calmer, and happier.
Many middle-aged people might question this claim, thinking, "My brain never works as well as it used to. Could this be a false claim?"
However, the claim that “the brain of middle-aged people is superior” is by no means an exaggeration.
Many research results currently being conducted at the forefront of brain science are drawing attention to the amazing capabilities of the middle-aged brain.


Barbara Strozzi's The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind is a neuroscience book that vividly delivers, like a documentary, what neuroscience has to say about the middle-aged brain.
The author meets with researchers at the forefront of brain science, persistently asking them what's happening in the "middle-aged brain" and what science has revealed about the "middle-aged brain," and then conveys the research results in easy, light-hearted sentences.
(Here, middle age refers to the age range from roughly 40s to 60s, but scientifically, it is difficult to clearly define what age range constitutes 'middle age'.)
According to the authors, the middle-aged brain is underrated.
Many people tend to think that the brain ages along with the body, but this is a misconception.
The author initially predicted that he would hear about a "middle-aged brain" filled with negative images, but contrary to this expectation, what the author actually heard from scientists was a "middle-aged brain" filled with positive images.
So why is it that the brain of a middle-aged person is so superior?
The areas in which the middle-aged brain most prominently stands out are judgment, synthesis, vocabulary, intuition, and insight.
The author says, “Your ability to make accurate judgments about people, work, and finances will become stronger.
“Because the brain interweaves knowledge layer by layer and forms patterns of connections, we can instantly recognize similarities in such patterns and situations and find solutions” (p. 17).
In other words, middle-aged brains quickly understand the main points and grasp the core of the discussion more quickly than their younger peers.


According to one long-term study, the best performers in tests measuring complex cognitive skills—vocabulary, verbal memory, spatial orientation, and inductive reasoning—were, on average, between the ages of 40 and 65.
Additionally, the subjects performed better in middle age than when they were 25.
While it's true that we slow down as we age, the ability to recognize patterns and see the essence of something is at its best in the middle-aged brain!

In another experiment, the middle-aged brain showed off its talents without any regrets.
A three-year pilot simulator piloting experiment conducted on 118 pilots aged 40 to 69 found that while the older pilots struggled with the simulator when they first used it, as the tests were repeated, they were better than the younger pilots at 'avoiding collisions with other aircraft'.
In other words, while older pilots took longer to catch up, they outperformed younger pilots when it came to the most important task: keeping the plane where it should be.

In this way, this book closely shows the abilities of the middle-aged brain such as ‘problem solving’, ‘judgment’, and ‘reasoning’, and mentions that “they are far superior to young or old people in judging the true character of others” (p. 84), and “when faced with information that is even slightly related to what they already know, the middle-aged brain works faster and smarter, discerning patterns and jumping to logical conclusions” (p. 92).
It also emphasizes the advantage of “better grasp of the big picture” (p. 93) and “greater tendency to tie together disparate clues to create a new whole” (pp. 94-95).
Additionally, the book points out that the middle-aged brain is “more positive.”
In short, the middle-aged brain is sharper, calmer, more flexible, and even more cheerful than before.


As we age, does our brain age too? Absolutely not!
Your brain doesn't get weaker, it gets stronger!

So what happens to the brain that allows middle-aged people to possess such extraordinary abilities? Neuroscience, which is constantly advancing thanks to cutting-edge equipment like brain scans and brain imaging, is shedding new light on the abilities of the middle-aged brain through longitudinal studies that track the same individuals for decades.


If we look at the various experiments and research results currently in progress, the areas that brain science has recently focused on in the middle-aged brain are (1) the continuous increase in myelin, (2) the tendency of the amygdala to react more to positive stimuli, and (3) 'bilateralization', which uses both the left and right brain simultaneously instead of just one side of the brain.


First, scientists found that myelin, the sheath that covers the long arms of neurons, continues to increase in the frontal and temporal lobes until middle age, peaking around age 50 on average.
The brain is made up of gray matter, which is the cell bodies of neurons, and white matter, which is the long arms of neurons. As we age, the myelin that makes up the white matter continues to increase.
According to scientists, more myelin means better brain signal transmission.
This is because myelin acts like insulation in a wire, allowing signals to travel faster and with less chance of leaking.


Second, the amygdala's tendency to respond more to positive stimuli may explain why middle-aged brains are more positive, cheerful, and optimistic.
Through brain imaging experiments, neuroscientists have consistently found that the amygdala of middle-aged people is less reactive to negativity.
The amygdala, located deep within the brain, is a primitive part involved in feeling various emotions, including fear, and is one of the oldest 'alarm systems' in humans.
The amygdala is naturally programmed to react most sensitively to negativity, so how come it's become so? Could it be that its function has weakened? According to research by scientists, it's actually because the middle-aged brain makes a deliberate effort to focus more on the positive.
In other words, he argues that “the brain that is most biased toward the positive is not the lazy brain, but rather the best brain, that is, the most intelligent brain” (p. 77).
Additionally, the middle-aged brain has increased control over its emotions, allowing it to view situations with greater calm and optimism.


Third, one of the most striking features of the middle-aged brain is its bilateralization.
In other words, when solving a problem, you used only the left or right brain when you were young, but when you get to middle age, you use both the left and right brain to solve the problem.
At first glance, it might seem like this is due to a decline in brain function, but scientists interpret this differently.
Neuroscientists claim that the brains of older adults are not underused, but rather more active ('hyperactivated'), and that the brains that use both sides of the brain better are the 'strongest brains'.
During the experiment, the brain that showed the most prominent bilateralization performed the task most competently.
In particular, the experimental results were the best in middle-aged people who utilized the superior frontal lobe, the brain's most elite unit.
Scientists have pointed out that the middle-aged brain “mobilizes more energy and squeezes more juice from its nerves to make things happen even when they shouldn’t” (p. 156).

If there's one thing to note here, it's that some of the flaws that start to become apparent in the middle-aged brain.
Scientists generally agree that as we age, our processing speed slows, our attention becomes more easily distracted, we become more forgetful, and our ability to remember names begins to decline.
In particular, most middle-aged people experience the phenomenon of knowing a name but having it linger on the tip of their tongue, known as the 'tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.'
This is because for words that are not used often, the connection between sound and concept is weak, making it difficult to retrieve the stored name.
Just like muscles that are not used often become weak.
On the other hand, this also happens because the link between a person and his name is so arbitrary (in fact, there is no reason why 'Brad Pitt' should be called 'Brad Pitt').


Another thing that scientists refer to as a characteristic of the middle-aged brain is the phenomenon of 'default mode.'
According to neuroscience, the middle-aged brain has a reduced ability to ignore distracting information, so even the slightest touch can disrupt focus or cause it to go into "primary mode."
'Initial mode' is one of the latest discoveries in neuroscience, a kind of daydreaming state where we silently and continuously mutter to ourselves, and it is where our brains go more and more as we age, leaving us in a dazed state.
Scientists point out that this is one of the characteristics that arises as we move from the patterns of youth to those of old age.


The middle-aged brain continues to develop as it reorganizes!
How you nurture your brain determines its capabilities.

So, are all middle-aged brains equally outstanding? One thing neuroscientists commonly mention is "deviation."
Over the long span of middle age, the brains of middle-aged people undergo surprising changes.
In other words, when you reach middle age, you show superior performance in many aspects compared to when you were younger, but depending on how you cultivate your brain during middle age, you may or may not be able to maintain that 'excellence' for a long time.
How you spend your middle age determines your brain's abilities in old age!

The striking examples of Sister Bernadette and the professor known as the chess master featured in this book demonstrate that exceptionally gifted brains can overcome even the pathological symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
Sister Bernadette and a professor known as a chess player showed the highest cognitive abilities during their lifetime, so no one suspected that they had Alzheimer's disease.
Only the chess player himself found it strange that while he had previously been able to think seven moves ahead in chess, he could now only think four.
In the case of chess players, no abnormalities were found in brain scans.
However, when an autopsy was performed after his death, it was revealed that he had severe Alzheimer's disease.


How can this happen? Scientists explain it through a concept called "cognitive reserve."
The idea is that the brain already has or has developed reserves of power, so when things get tough, these 'cognitive reserves' act as a protective shield, much like the brains of Sister Bernardes or chess players.
It's as if we have an 'emergency brain power' reserve of efficient brain networks or recovery systems.


The most important key question here would be this:
Why do some brains age healthily while others don't? Is it innate, or is there some adaptive strategy?

Neuroscience hasn't fully elucidated this.
We still have to wait a while for this to be revealed.
But in the field of neuroscience, the argument that education, exercise, diet, and brain training may help to some extent is gaining traction.
In particular, many scientists believe that exercise is one of the best ways to improve brain function.
Just as exercise strengthens the heart, exercise strengthens the brain.
According to animal experiments, exercise is receiving even more attention because new neurons were created in the dentate gyrus, a small area of ​​the hippocampus (an area important for memory) in animals that exercised.
While the author believes in the effectiveness of 'exercise', he notes that while food and brain training programs have 'potential' benefits, they are often not scientifically proven.