A new study potentially shows how the brains of superagers — people with outstanding cognitive performance despite their age — resist age-related decline.

The report, published April 29 in the Journal of Neuroscience, specifically looked at the white matter in the brains of superagers over a five-year span. A total of 1,213 adults in Spain were part of the study, and they were between 70 and 85 years old. The team specifically looked at 64 superagers and compared data to 55 typical older adults. 

Superagers were defined as those over 80. All of the participants were expected to live at least four years and didn’t need extra assistance with daily activities. The superagers all had exceptional episodic memory compared to others in their age group; their episodic memory was similar to people two and three decades younger. 

Aging is linked with structural and functional changes to the brain and declines in cognitive function. Previous research showed that superagers resist age-related changes in the brain’s gray matter. Investigators in the recent report looked at MRI data to examine the structure of white matter in their brains. 

There weren’t differences in the health of the white matter, but superagers had better microstructure of white matter especially in the frontal fibers which indicates that they resist cognitive decline. Superagers performed better on neuropsychological tests at first, but over time there weren’t differences in cognitive decline rates between groups. 

Both groups had a high prevalence of white matter lesions, with no significant differences in lesion severity. Over time, superagers showed slower declines in white matter lesion volume than their peers.  

Additionally, superagers exhibited slower declines in fractional anisotropy (FA) and lower mean diffusivity (MD) over time than the comparison group across various white matter tracts, which indicates that white matter microstructure may be linked to age-related change resistance. 

The authors note that the study shows the importance of white matter health when it comes to cognitive aging.