Erin Abner is a professor of epidemiology at the University of Kentucky's College of Public Health. She's also a researcher at the university's Sanders Brown Center on Aging. Trump is 77 right now. Biden is 81. We don't know the details of their medical records or mental health status. But generally speaking, what happens to our brains as we age into our seventies eighties and beyond?
There are pretty universal changes that we see as people age. We lose synapses. Our blood vessels get less healthy. Our brains tend to to atrophy a little bit, and and we would say that those are usual changes. And very often, they don't cause any any trouble with our cognition or our ability to take care of ourselves and live our lives.
So what is the difference between a human brain that's experiencing normal aging and one that's experiencing symptoms of dementia?