Product Description

We joke about growing old. From the viewpoint of youth, old age holds few if any rewards - and at most those of increased dignity and wisdom. But as Lawrence Whalley shows in this fascinating overview of the ageing brain, we now have cause to be optimistic about old age - especially as mental and physical disability is much less common in old people than it was 20 years ago. In surveying the prospects of slowing or even preventing the worst effects of brain ageing, Whalley looks at the development of the brain and how this is influenced by environmental factors such as diet and stress; the biological and psychological mechanisms of brain injury and disease, and the range of possible treatments and preventatives; individual differences in brain ageing, and the relative roles of nature and nurture in determining our mental abilities; current strategies to slow brain ageing such as the 'use it or lose it' technique; and a look forward to the future of brain treatment, including gene therapy, silicon-neuron implants, virtual reality and intelligent environments.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1284811 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 196 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Lawrence Whalley's The Ageing Brain is the seventh in Weidenfeld's excellent, if serendipitous, "Maps of the Mind" series, edited by Steven Rose. Whalley studies the molecular biology of the ageing brain and his book's core is an account of research into Alzheimer's disease. Whalley is upbeat: "There is a popular misconception that success in the fight against disease has simply replaced premature infant death or adult disease with untreatable disorders of late life", he observes. "The truth is quite different... A greater proportion of old people now enjoy better physical health than ever before." Hence his calling: "to help achieve for the brain what the final decades of the last century achieved for the body: fitter old brains for fitter old people". The outlook is good: new research shows that healthy brains develop as they age, optimising their structures to compensate for tissue loss. Yes, our brains do start shrinking--but this is not, after all, a sign of mental decline.

Whalley's is not a winnable war. "To be old and sad seems a not unreasonable condition," he writes. What shows up in tests as impaired function is frequently only an old person's demoralisation in the face of loneliness and death. The simple fact of being old deals as cruel a blow to mental function as any biological change.

The book concludes with a short description of computer-based palliatives to addled old age. Nostalgia machines, virtual reality: it's a horribly confused few pages--a little desperate, too, as Whalley rails against the dying of the light. --Simon Ings

About the Author
Lawrence Whalley is Professor of Mental Health at the University of Aberdeen. He works on the molecular biology of ageing, in particular dementia in Alzheimer's disease.

Customer Reviews

A complex subject described in relatively simple terms.
Professor Whalley has presented us with a fascinating insight into that miracle of human evolution, the brain. He tells a good story, although one finds oneself wondering whether what he is saying actually applies personally to our own brains. As in all books with a medical flavour, it is difficult to resist the temptation to ascribe some of the described conditions to ourselves.

This book will be a great consolation to anyone enduring the ravages of caring for, or knowing someone with Alzheimers Disease. It is good to realise that there are actions to be taken while we are young enough, that could help us when we grow older and that there is no stigma to be attached to the disease. Perhaps,through the efforts of Professor Whalley and his colleagues, we may one day rid ourselves of it.