Title: Brain health beyond cognition: Exploring the needs of an aging brain
Abstract:
The brain is a complex organ that neuroscientists are still attempting to understand. Due to the multifactorial nature, the role of nutrition and nutritional products in cognitive neuroscience is complex. As people live longer, dysfunction of the brain is becoming a predominant issue for the healthcare system. Age-related changes in cognitive function vary considerably across individuals and lifecycle stages, with some cognitive functions appearing to be more susceptible than others to the effects of aging. The brain undergoes tremendous age-associated structural and functional changes as we age. Like age-related changes in brain structure and function, age-related changes in cognition are not uniform across all cognitive domains, or across all older individuals. The basic cognitive functions most affected by age are attention and memory. Older adults show significant impairments in attention tasks, particularly on multitasking platforms. General knowledge, vocabulary and verbal ability do not significantly decline throughout the lifecycle.
The neuroscience in the 21st century has shown tremendous growth, particularly in the identification of targets that provide therapeutic benefit in wide ranges of brain disorders. The prospect of future success in the field of neuro (nutra) ceuticals continues to capture the imagination of many neuroscientists and also entering the developmental drug pipeline. ‘Cognition need’ is related to lifecycle stages, such as childhood, adolescent, active adults and aging population and we need to develop strategies to combat this multifactorial (physiological) pathways with multicomponent (single or combination herbs) nutraceutical.
