Brain Exercise Benefits at Any Age

Brain Exercise Benefits at Any Age
任何年龄锻炼大脑都有益

A book a day may keep dementia away. Even if you read it as a kid. Because a study finds that exercising the brain, at any age, may preserve memory. The work appears online in the journalNeurology. [Robert S. Wilson et al., Life-span cognitive activity, neuropathologic burden, and cognitive aging]
每天一本书，可以让人远离痴呆。即使你读的时候还是一个孩子。因为一项研究发现，锻炼大脑，在任何年龄，都能够保持记忆力。这项工作发表在the journalNeurology. [Robert S. Wilson et al., Life-span cognitive activity, neuropathologic burden, and cognitive aging]。
Previous studies have shown that engaging in brain-building activities is associated with a delay in late-life cognitive decline. But why? Does flexing the old gray matter somehow buffer against age-related intellectual impairment? Or is cognitive loss simply a consequence of the aging brain’s physical decline?
过去的研究表明，参与益智活动，与延迟晚年的认知衰退有关。但是为什么会这样？活动老化的灰质有助于缓冲与年龄相关的智力衰退吗？还是说认知衰退仅仅是老化的大脑的物理衰退的结果？
To find out, researchers questioned nearly 300 elderly individuals about their lifelong participation in intellectual pursuits—like reading books, writing letters and looking things up in the library. Then, every year, for an average of six years until they died, the subjects took tests to measure their memory and thinking. 
为了探究原因，研究人员访问了大约300位老者，关于他们一生在智力活动上的参与情况。比如，读书，写信以及在图书馆找东西。然后，每一年，直到平均五年之后他们去世，研究人员会给他们做测试，来评估他们的记忆力和思维。
What the researchers found is that folks who worked their mental muscles, both early and late in life, remained more intellectually limber than those who didn’t—even when a post-mortem look at their brains revealed the telltale signs of physical decline.
研究人员发现，经常锻炼心智的人，不管是生命的早期还是晚期，都会在智力上更加敏锐。——即使在他们死后对大脑的检查表明，他们的大脑也同样遭受了物理衰退。
So if you’re headed to the beach, don’t forget a hat and a book, both to protect your head.
所以，如果你准备去海边，不要忘了带上帽子和一本书，它们都可以保护你的头。