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Chapter 1. Chapter

Article

From the Pages of Scientific American

Changing Social Roles Can Reverse Aging

From the pages of Scientific American. Changing Social Roles Can Reverse Aging. Old bees that start caring for young ones gain cognitive power. How many mothers have looked at their children and thought, “Ah, they keep me young”? Now we know how right they are. Caring for the young may delay—and in some cases, even reverse—multiple negative effects of aging in the brain. Gro Amdam, who studies aging in bees at Arizona State University, observed tremendous improvements in cognition among older bees that turn their attention back to nursing. She has reason to believe that changes in social behavior could shave years off the human brain as well. When bees age, their duties switch from taking care of the brood to foraging outside the hive. The transition is followed by a swift physical and cognitive decline. Amdam removed young bees from their hives, which tricked the older bees into returning to their caretaker posts. Then she tested their ability to learn new tasks. A majority reverted to their former cognitive prowess, according to results published in the journal Experimental Gerontology. “What we saw was the complete reversal of the dementia in these bees. They were performing exactly as well as young bees,” Amdam says. The ones that improved had higher levels of the antioxidant PRX6 in their brain, a protein that exists in humans and is thought to protect against neurodegenerative diseases. Amdam’s theory is that when older individuals participate in tasks typically handled by a younger generation—whether in a hive or in our own society—antioxidant levels increase in the brain and turn back the clock. Youth, it turns out, may be infectious after all. The author is Morgen Peck. Reproduced with permission. Copyright 2012 Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.

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1.1 Quiz

1. The idea that social roles can affect the biological outcomes of aging in the brain most closely reflects which broad perspective in psychology?

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2. Amdam’s work indicates that a specific kind of ____________ is the substance that “turns back the clock” on aging’s effects on the brain.

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3. In Amdam’s study, she took older bees who were foraging and forced them to take over nursing duties. How did she know that the older bees’ cognitive function had returned?

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4. What is the hypothesized role of PRX6 in the human brain?

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5. Let’s imagine that someone argued that Amdam’s study concluded that social role changes cause the recovery of mental function. What’s wrong with this argument?

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