Doctors study how brains stay sharp

When aging hampers memory, some people’s brains compensate to stay sharp. Now scientists want to know how those brains make do — in hopes of developing treatments to help everyone else keep up.

This is not Alzheimer’s disease, but the wear-and-tear of so-called normal aging. New research is making clear that memory and other brain functions decline to varying degrees even in otherwise healthy people as they age, as anyone who habitually loses car keys probably suspected.

By Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-10-16-aging-brain-studies_N.htm