Centenarians, individuals one hundred years old or older, are the fastest-growing age group in the United States with experts predicting that there may be as many as 1 million by the year 2050 according to The Scientific American Brave New Brain: How Neuroscience, Brain-Machine Interfaces, Neuroimaging, Psychopharmacology, Epigenetics, the Internet, and Our … and Enhancing the Future of Mental Power by Judith Horstman.  If you are sixty years old or younger today, you could be included in that group.

People age eighty and older are the fastest growing segment of the populations in many countries.  By 2040, the National Institute on Aging says the number of people sixty-five or older (myself included) worldwide will hit a staggering 1.3 billion.  For the first time in human history, within the next ten years, the number of people sixty-five and older will be greater than the number of children under the age of five.  That is a lot of old brains!

The Congress of the United States declared the 1990’s to be “The Decade of the Brain” sponsoring a variety of activities and cutting-edge research on the brain.  Today, billions of dollars are being expended on brain research with special emphasis on dementia, memory loss, and other age-related conditions because of the aging population.

This focus has paid off with new discoveries and a much better understanding of the brain.  In the book, Horstman writes that “We’ve learned more about the brain in the past fifty years than in the preceding fifty thousand, and the cooperation of sciences over the next two decades may even surpass that record.”  Brain science is big business.

In the book, she provides interesting information about the brain comparing what was thought then, what is known now, and what might be tomorrow:

• Then   Your brain cells are finite: you only have so many, and they cannot be replaced when they die.
• Now   Your brain makes new neurons in some areas.
• Next   New neurons are created at will, where and when you need them.

• Then  Your brain is hardwired like a computer.
• Now  Your brain is changing every second in response to the environment and your mind.
• Next  You change and mold your brain as you want and need.

• Then  Brain, mind, and body are separate.
• Now  Brain, mind, and body are intertwined.
• Next  Brain, mind, and body are enhanced by machines and computers.

• Then  Each part of your brain has a specific function.
• Now  Your brain is networked, like a village of skilled workers supporting one another.
• Next  You direct new brain networks for desired outcomes.

• Then  Memory is accurate and unchanging.
• Now  Memory is changeable.  Events are “recollected” in a new context and slightly changed.
• Next  Memory is manipulated.  You can keep memories you want and erase the ones you don’t.

• Then  Alzheimer’s disease and loss of brain function are inevitable parts of aging.
• Now  Active brains retain more function than inactive ones, even in some very elderly people.
• Next   Alzheimer’s disease is reversible even curable in many cases.

• Then  Surgery is the best way to repair an injured brain.
• Now  Noninvasive methods and drugs are preferred to surgery for repairing a brain.
• Next  Technology has made surgery obsolete except in the most severe cases.

• Then  Consciousness is a mystery.
• Now  Consciousness is a mystery.
• Next Consciousness is a mystery.