Mental activities like reading and writing can preserve
structural integrity in the brains of older people, according to a new study
presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North
America (RSNA).
While previous research has shown an association between
late-life cognitive activity and better mental acuity, the new study from Konstantinos
Arfanakis, Ph.D., and colleagues from Rush University Medical Center and
Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago studied what effect late-life
cognitive activity might have on the brain's white matter, which is composed of
nerve fibers, or axons, that transmit information throughout the brain.