Higher Education Boosts Brain Health in Seniors

It's no secret that cognitive ability declines with age. Therefore, the average cognition levels and productivity tend to decline as a country's population ages and rates of dementia rises.

Researchers said the general European trend of aging populations presents serious challenges to health care, budgets and economic growth. Lead investigator Vegard Skirbekk of International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis said that research on improving senior cognition is paramount to the economic well-being of countries.

"Finding ways to improve the cognition of seniors is of central importance to the economic well-being of aging countries," Skirbekk, who worked on the study with researchers Nicole Schneeweis and Rudolf Winter Ebmer at Linz University, said in a news release.

In the latest study, researchers analyzed variation in years of schooling starting from compulsory educational reforms implemented in six European countries during the 1950s and 1960s. Researchers also analyzed mental functioning in seniors with various levels of educational attainment. The study revealed that the burden of demographic aging is likely to depend more on how healthy and cognitively fit people are at different ages than on the exact age structure of people in the population.

The findings also revealed that education significantly boosts brain function. Furthermore, this effect perseveres as people age. People who received higher education or attended school for longer periods because of new regulations performed significantly better in cognitive functioning than those who did not. The study also found a positive correlation between schooling and memory scores.

Researchers noted that the findings suggest that schooling is the cause rather than personal characteristics as it was the choice for longer schooling did not depend on young people or their parents. Researchers said this schooling could also explain the differences in cognitive function.

"Examining the variation in compulsory schooling was key. It allowed us to find out that education was the cause of better cognitive function, and not a simple correlation," said Winter-Ebmer, according to a press release.

Researchers said the study used data from participants aged around 60 from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe.

The findings are published in the journal Demography.