social activity occurs in lab-raised monkeys when they become elderly.
We’ve talked about mentalizing, or Theory of Mind. As you get older, the ability to mentalize begins to decline. In a lab assay called the “false belief task,” people try to guess the intention of someone else. Younger adults routinely get the correct answer about 95 percent of the time, elderly adults about 85 percent of the time. The senior scores worsen with age, such that after age eighty, the scores shrink to less than 70 percent. The reason appears to be an age-related change in the functional activity of a single region in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex (often abbreviated as PFC) is evolution’s newest add-on to your brain’s fundamental architecture. It’s a most talented structure, with functions ranging from decision making to personality formation. As we’ll discover later, most of the talents we identify as uniquely human arise in the PFC.
Is it possible that changes in facial recognition and changes in mentalizing ability are related? And if so, might they be part of nature’s contribution to the social isolation experienced by many of our elderly? The real answer is we don’t know. But the fact that I can write about this stuff in a scientifically meaningful fashion at all represents a tremendous leap in our understanding from even a few years ago. Such progress has even bled into the practical realm of intervention. Solid research shows steps we can take to ameliorate the negative effects of loneliness. It is to these steps that we turn next.
Dance the night away
The years of age separating dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Fred Astaire span about a half century. No matter: the Latvian’s admiration for his American colleague is evident. “No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business,” said the legendary Soviet and American ballet dancer. He was describing the Hollywood movie star and legendary hoofer, who danced with just about every leading lady in twentieth-century American film, and also with brooms, rotating rooms, firecrackers, even his own shadow. He inspired a whole generation of Americans to get out there and dance the night away, with a chain of franchisable dance studios trumpeting the cause. As a brain scientist, watching his seemingly effortless movements, I say he should inspire us again. Unfortunately, he died in 1987, at the ripe old age of eighty-eight.
The reason for my enthusiasm is scientific. You can cover the dance floor with peer-reviewed papers showing the benefits of this regular, ritualized movement that forces social interaction. The scientific benefits are almost too good to be true.
Consider one study, where researchers enrolled healthy older adults, ages sixty to ninety-four, in a six-month dance class, one hour per week. The investigators assessed a broad range of cognitive and motor skills before class commenced, then assessed them again six months later. Non-dancing controls were also measured.
The results were as welcome as free tickets to the Bolshoi. Hand-motor coordination (as measured by a standardized Reaction Time Analysis assay) improved by about 8 percent in six months. That might not sound like much, until you consider that the scores of the controls actually decreased during the same period. Suites of cognitive skills were tested, including fluid intelligence, short-term memory, and impulse control. These increased by an impressive 13 percent during the dance class. Posture and balance (measured by using the so-called forced-platform test) increased by about 25 percent in the dancers over their previous scores. And again, the nondancers showed a net decrease. Half a year later, the dancers did not move the same way—or think the same way.
The type of dance didn’t seem to matter. Tango, jazz, salsa, folk, various kinds of ballroom dancing: all exerted their whirling wizardry on the brain. Further research has shown that other forms of ritualized movement instruction, such as tai chi and various martial arts, also show benefits in many of these same measures.
One of the most unexpected findings had to do with the number of falls experienced by seniors who took movement classes. During the testing period in one tai chi program, the number of falls fell by 37 percent. Falling is not a trivial issue for the elderly, and for the two reasons they care the most about: head injuries and bank accounts. In the United States, medical expenses from seniors’ falls total more than $30 billion a year. In Australia, fall-related injuries among the elderly take nearly 5 percent of the health care budget.
Fred Astaire was obviously on to something.
The human touch
Why does dancing work? The truth is we’re not sure. Undoubtedly exercise plays a part. Dancing requires participants not only to learn and memorize synchronized coordinated movements but also to muster up the energy to perform them. There are socialization arguments to consider, too. In most of these studies, a room full of people would be dancing, often as partners, requiring at least a two-drink minimum equivalent of social interactivity.
Finally, there is the idea of face-to-face interactions. And here we have something of a surprise. Depending on the style, dancing allows the opportunity for a certain amount of human touch. That’s important for anybody, but it’s wildly important for the elderly. The benefits of touch for senior brains—and just about everybody else’s brains—have been studied in the laboratories of such notable scientists as Dr. Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami. She didn’t study dancing. She studied massage, and was among the first to show powerful cognitive and emotional boosts associated with the practice.
Virtually everybody Field has ever tested has shown the benefits of touch, from our oldest citizens in nursing homes to our youngest premature citizens in NICUs (neonatal intensive care units).
Field didn’t have to hire a formal masseuse to get the benefit. Even infrequent touching by nonprofessionals, like your friends, helps cement relationships (if the touch is welcome, not exploitive). Fifteen minutes a day will do. That may help explain the invisible devilry of the dance floor, for you often get and give much more than fifteen minutes of touch.
This leads to some practical advice. If you are a younger person, learn how to dance, then keep up the activity clear into your retirement years. If you are already old enough to think about retirement, this recommendation is even stronger. If you already know how to dance, find a place where you can cut a rug regularly. And if you don’t know how to dance, take a class, then start your rug cutting.
This helps us settle a digital question, too. As you know, I think social media is a country for old men and women, especially poignant for the mobility impaired. Yet the preferential power of face-to-face communication is clear. Whenever there is a choice to have it, choose it. When at all possible, allow other humans to share the same oxygen as you. Yes, such contact has its pitfalls, but it is what the brain needs in its twilight years. You may feel awkward on a dance floor. You may feel awkward talking instead of typing. Yet for the millions of years we have evolved, we had flesh-and-blood interactions, not server-and-CPU interactions.
Considering the power of socialization on the brain, being with each other is the most natural thing in the world.
SUMMARY
Be a friend to others, and let others be a friend to you
• Keep social groups vibrant and healthy; this actually boosts your cognitive abilities as you age.
• Stress-reducing, high-quality relationships, such as a good marriage, are particularly helpful for longevity.
• Cultivate relationships with younger generations. They help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression.
• Loneliness is the greatest risk factor for depression for the elderly. Excessive loneliness can cause brain damage.
