Episode 2 How To Stay Young

We're on a search to find the best ways of keeping us all young.

SHE LAUGHS UPROARIOUSLY

So far, we've looked at the body.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Wow!

This time, it's what we can do for our brains.

I'm Angela Rippon. I'm a TV journalist and 71 years old.

I'm interested in finding out what I can do to stay sharp

for as long as possible.

I'm Chris van Tulleken. I'm a doctor and a research scientist.

And at 36, I'm half Angela's age.

But I know I'm not doing the best job to look after

myself for getting older.

But if there's one thing I should work hard to take care of,

it's my brain.

Brain science is one of the fastest-growing areas of research.

And scientists now know more about what

we can do to keep our minds young than ever before.

So, we're scouring the world to uncover the latest research

that'll help all of us to give our brains a boost.

In Japan, a remarkable 100-year-old reveals the colourful foods

that will keep our minds more active.

We carry out our own scientific test to find out the best

exercise we can do for our brains.

I just feel better. I actually feel like the cobwebs are blowing.

In America, I try out a new treatment that's proven

to help memory and concentration.

Should I be applying for a job with the United States Air Force?

-I think so, yeah.

-LAUGHTER

And at the cutting-edge of science, we discover how

injections of young people's blood may help beat dementia.

Is it the Fountain of Youth? It might be.

Now that I'm in my early seventies,

there are obvious signs of my body ageing on the outside.

But what I want to find out is, what happens to our brain as we age?

-It's going to be noisy, isn't it?

-It is.

'So I've come to this clinic in London to have an MRI scan

'of my brain. It's uncharted territory, this.'

Now, I have what you might call a rather quirky kind of brain and memory,

because I have an almost photographic memory,

which means that I can absorb and retain all sorts of research

and information. Really, anything to do with my job.

But at the same time, I can very easily walk into a room

and say, "What the heck did I come in here for?"

And I'm always saying, "Where have I put my glasses?"

-You'll be talking to me?

-I'll be talking to you.

-OK.

'Lots of people of people my age experience this sort of absent-mindedness.'

OK?

'And the scan could reveal changes to my brain that explain it.'

Jimmy Bell, professor of medicine, will supervise the scanning.

-OK, Angela. How are you?

-Fine, thank you.

-Excellent.

So, in the brain we are hoping to see whether

there have been changes in your overall grey matter,

which is the bit of your brain that does all of the thinking

and the function and these are known to change with age.

OK.

'While the scan itself is straightforward enough,

'I'm naturally concerned that it might reveal something serious.'

'This is a rare opportunity to be able to peer inside my own brain.'

So what happens as we get older?

The total volume of your brain shrinks down.

At the age of 40, that starts decreasing by about 5% every decade.

It accelerates by the age of 70.

You lose about 20% by the age of 70.

This is a shocking statistic!

I had no idea that on average, people of my age

will have lost a fifth of their brain capacity.

The natural shrinkage of the brain as we age

is caused by individual nerve cells dying over time.

This is real footage showing brain cells dying and disappearing.

So how does my brain there compare with somebody in their twenties or their thirties?

Well, it has actually shrunk, the grey matter has shrunk a small

amount, but not as much as you see in the general population.

So the age of your brain will be more around the age of 40, 50,

rather than in their seventies.

Given that my brain could have been 20% smaller,

it's actually good news that it's only shrunk 5%.

But the loss of some of my little grey cells

might explain my occasional absentmindedness.

Have you ever had episodes

where you forget things more often than you used to?

I'm always losing the car keys, always.

But I have a pretty healthy attitude towards the way that my brain is ageing.

That I remember the things that are important

and the car keys'll turn up sooner or later anyway. LAUGHTER

For many others, this natural shrinkage of the brain

can have a huge impact on who we are,

affecting our memory, reasoning skills and even our emotions.

It's made me all the more determined to find out just how the

latest science can help us slow down the ageing of the brain.

But first, why do the brains of some people decline more than others?

Edinburgh is home to one of the world's most important studies

into how brains age.

Everyone in this group is exactly 79 years old.

You can see they've all physically aged differently

and so have their brains.

-Can everyone see themselves on my screen?

-CAMERA CLICKS

Ian Deary, professor of psychology,

has studied changes in the group's mental abilities over their whole lives.

I will be brief, because like you lot, I now need to go to the loo.

LAUGHTER

When the people in this room were 11 years old, they took

a test along with thousands of other children all across Scotland.

And the test assessed their mental abilities and, crucially,

that data formed a benchmark, a baseline, which enabled

those scientists to then retest them repeatedly over the years

and assess the performance

and track changes between the young and the old brains.

Have you seen these?

They are two people's brains from the Lothian birth cohort of 1936.

You'll see that one has got a lot of spaces between the ridges

and one has a relatively few.

And that's the heart of what we're trying to study in this project,

is why some people's brains

and thinking skills age better than others.

One of the key purposes of the study was to find out how much ageing

of the brain was down to genes and how much was down to lifestyle.

Ian's team tested each person for over 600,000 genetic factors.

The results are fascinating.

This is what we're trying to look at.

The differences between people in how they've aged

from childhood to older age, and we found that about a quarter

of these differences seem to be caused by genetic factors.

Ian's research proves that genes play only a relatively small role

in how our brains age. Just a quarter.

Instead, upbringing and lifestyle

have the bigger impact on brain health.

I feel like we've generally been on the side of the genes

for the last decade or so. We've felt like that.

I think the answer was nobody was very clear how much genes

contributed to cognitive change across the life course.

It's really important, because it means how our brains change

over time is not set in stone.

And we can all do something to improve our brain health.

Here's to you! Who's like you? Naebody! OK, well done!

APPLAUSE

In recent years, much scientific research has

focused on exercise as being good for the brain.

But are some types of exercise better than others?

This is the European Veteran Table Tennis Championships in Finland.

2,500 competitors, many over 80 years of age.

The players themselves suspect table tennis benefits their minds.

It keeps me agile and quick-thinking.

You've got to be watching the ball carefully all the time

and thinking all the time what you're doing.

Obviously, they're trying to suss out your weaknesses as well,

so it's a bit of, you know, trying to fox each other very often.

But what can physical exercise do for our brain?

Some scientists believe that exertion helps general

blood flow to the brain.

Others think that activities like table tennis,

with lots of hand-to-eye coordination,

might be especially beneficial.

So to find out, we're sitting up our own test.

To pit table tennis against simple walking.

We've gathered 22 volunteers, each over the age of 60.

Each keen to find out

whether table tennis or walking

is better at keeping their brain younger.

Many of them have noticed their minds are not as sharp

as they used to be.

Sometimes you try and recall something and you think,

"Oh, where's that gone?"

The other day, I had a really senior moment.

And I'm frightened of what might come.

I already find that, you know, I forget where I've put things,

but I think that's normal, for people of my age.

Each volunteer is randomly assigned a group.

Either the table tennis group...

or the walking group.

Running the study is Dr Matthew Kempton from King's College London.

Table tennis is a very interesting activity to look at,

because we know that it's very fast-moving, there's a competitive

angle, there's hand-eye coordination in there as well.

And we think that might lead to changes in blood flow to the brain

and also changes in cognition as well.

Walking's certainly very good exercise.

Do you think table tennis is really going to beat it?

Just hitting a little ball with a bat?

I think it's very hard to determine that, and I think that's what makes

this experiment really interesting to look at.

-So, I really can't say.

-That's the answer of a true scientist.

-Exactly.

"I don't know the answer, so we're going to do a test to find out!" That is fair enough.

Before any exercise begins,

we need a baseline measurement of each volunteer's overall brainpower.

When you're ready, push the "start the test" button on your screen.

Away you go.

So, we're going to test memory, reaction speed, attention

and a thing called executive function, which is

a set of mental skills that allows us to do complicated tasks,

where you have to prioritise, plan, organise. Things like that.

This test is designed to get into all the nooks

and crannies of your brain and see what's going on.

As well as memory and thinking skills,

we're also tracking their emotional wellbeing.

We'll repeat the same tests in ten weeks after their exercise regimes

to see if they've improved at all.

Some volunteers are also having their brains scanned.

We'll want to discover if exercise can slow down the natural shrinkage

of the brain as we get older, or even make parts of the brain larger.

The 11 walkers will do one hour of brisk walking, twice a week.

To stop skiving, they wear a pedometer.

Some of them have not done much walking for a while.

Excited and apprehensive,

because the thought of walking three miles is...

Appals me.

There's a very personal reason why Pat volunteered to take part.

It's very, very important at my age.

I'm very aware of memory.

I see a lot of much older people,

and my father in particular has Alzheimer's

and vascular dementia, and I don't want to end up like him.

I've seen it now, close-up, and it's a terrible thing

and I intend to keep my brain healthy.

And if exercise is a way of doing it, then I'm going to do it.

The table tennis group will also train for one hour, twice a week.

Come on in.

Putting them through their paces

are table tennis professionals Mariola and Olaf.

-No pressure.

-No pressure! Yet.

Everyone is over 60 here. Do you think you're really going to achieve a lot?

When I coach people, then the age doesn't matter.

They will have phenomenal transformation in terms

of their confidence, the realisation, their hand-eye coordination skills.

A-one, two, hit!

I think I'm slowing down, mentally, so this will be brilliant for me.

I think it'll liven my brain up, I do, really.

But some of the other players are unconvinced that table tennis could help.

Whether it's going to affect my brain function, I don't know.

I'm very sceptical as to whether this is going to have

any significant effect.

We'll see.

So which will win out? Table tennis or walking?

We've got two groups, two activities, ten weeks.

I cannot wait to see who does better.

Exercise is not the only factor that science has shown to help

protect the brain.

BEE BUZZES

Some clues about what's best for our brains can be found

on the island of Okinawa, off Japan.

The Okinawans live longer than people anywhere else

in the world and far fewer of their elderly get dementia.

Rates of brain disease here can be up to 50% lower than in the West.

Scientists believe they've pinpointed the key factors to

this astonishing protection.

THEY SPEAK IN OWN LANGUAGE

CLAPPING

This is one 85-year-old you don't want to mess with.

Toshio Higa is a master of karate and thinks

having a healthy brain has much to do with

the way that their society treats older people.

A respect for elders is written into Japanese law.

A study of five communities around the world, where people live

healthily the longest, has confirmed the benefit of respect.

All these places have elderly who are highly valued.

But the other factor that scientists think keeps

the brains of the Okinawans so sharp is the food that they eat.

Shimpuku Komaki is 100 years old.

One of the many centenarians here whose diet keeps him healthy.

His daughter, Mishiu, cooks for him.

"Nuchi gusui" means "food is medicine".

But what is it about their diet that maintains a healthy brain?

Professor Craig Wilcox runs the Okinawan Centenarian Study.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

He's been investigating the local diet here for the last decade.

He's discovered a vegetable which he believes plays a key role

in maintaining their vigorous health.

Sweet potatoes have been a go-to to the Okinawans for a long time,

because they're easy to grow, they're very economical to produce

and they're powerhouses of nutrition.

On average, the Okinawans eat a huge amount of this purple sweet potato every day.

Over half a kilo each.

It's not the ice cream truck that visits your house in Okinawa, it's the sweet-potato truck!

People do eat ice cream in Okinawa, they eat sweet-potato ice cream!

Like most Okinawans, Mr Shimpuku loves purple sweet potato.

-Hi!

-Hi!

-Hi, konichiwa!

-Konichiwa!

-Hi!

Craig thinks this vegetable can help explain the astonishing low rates

of dementia in Okinawa.

And an 80% reduced chance of heart disease.

It's all because the purple sweet potato helps maintain healthy blood vessels.

Blood vessel health is very important for prevention

of cardiovascular disease.

Of course, the cardiovascular disease risk factors

are also risk factors for vascular dementia,

so we want to keep our arteries

healthy, supple and young.

This is why centenarians such as Mr Shinpuku in Okinawa

fare so much better than their counterparts in the West.

Mr Shinpuku is a great role model for ageing.

I mean, the guy's 100 years old and zipping around on his moped.

His diet is a wonderful support for his healthy ageing

and he's got the perfect prescription to live

another few years past 100.

But what is it inside the purple sweet potato

that gives it these extraordinary powers?

To discover the active substance in this vegetable

we've had them scientifically tested back in the UK.

Paul Kroon is a scientist at the Norwich Institute of Food Research.

He's honed in on a set of compounds that could be the key.

So, Paul, what have you found?

Well, we were looking for some specific compounds

in the purple sweet potatoes

and what this analysis showed us

is that those purple sweet potatoes contain these compounds

called anthocyanins.

So when we see all these peaks here,

they are due to anthocyanins that have come out of that

purple sweet potato and that is what we are seeing.

Anthocyanins are pigments found in the cells of certain plants.

They give this sweet potato its rich purple colour.

Paul believes it is these compounds that are a major player

in the Okinawans' brain health.

We can confirm some of the information that has been

coming out of Japan.

There is good scientific evidence now that these compounds seem

to be quite good at keeping blood flow going.

It provides the nutrients and the oxygen

your brain needs to work well.

But the purple sweet potato is an exotic vegetable in the UK

and really difficult to obtain.

So what foods available over here might provide the same benefit?

The fruits that contain the most,

that really pack that anthocyanin punch,

are things like blackcurrants, blueberries and blackberries.

These three fruits, especially the blackcurrants,

all contain huge amounts of anthocyanins.

Vegetables such as aubergines and red cabbage contained less,

about the same as the purple sweet potato.

But as portions of vegetables are often larger than fruit,

the intake of anthocyanin is still high.

So is it time to pack our diets with even more of these colourful foods?

We think they are very important and that the evidence

is strengthening about the benefits they have.

Are you actually saying, then, that anthocyanins

can help keep your brain young?

Yes.

Now, there is still more research to do,

but we now know not just five fruit and veg a day

but perhaps you should include two purple ones in your diet

because we have established sufficient evidence

that it's consistently as good for your brain or for other

elements of your health.

So, if we want a healthier brain and heart

and to slow down the natural shrinkage of the brain,

we should eat a lot more fruit and vegetables,

especially the purple ones.

Later on, we look at futuristic brain research projects

from the realms of science fiction that are now becoming a reality.

Angela is with the US military to find out first-hand

whether electrical brain stimulation can improve concentration

and in California I join scientists carrying out the first trial

into whether injections of young people's blood

can reverse the effects of dementia.

But first, it's time to catch up

with our exercise challenge.

Ten weeks ago, we started an experiment to discover if

table tennis or brisk walking

is better at protecting our brains as we age.

The two groups are just completing their exercise regimes.

The table tennis lot have already noticed

that they feel physically stronger

and they've especially enjoyed the social aspect of the game.

He's only 60.

The group is amazing.

There was some alchemy there, some magic

and we've been out and had coffee together and,

you know, I went to the theatre with a couple of them.

The walkers are also benefiting.

I just feel better.

I actually feel like cobwebs are blowing.

I feel more alert.

I think I can say I feel more alert.

Everyone is regrouping to find out the scientific results.

So I'm very excited about these results today

because no-one has ever put brisk walking

head-to-head in a test like this with table tennis

and I'm hoping that the results will give us

the first inkling of how these different activities

affect our brain in different ways,

and hopefully, which one is better for us.

They are redoing everything they did before,

problem-solving, the memory tests

and the emotional wellbeing assessment.

Ted, you have had ten weeks of ping pong.

How do you think the test went second time around?

-Much better than the first.

-Really?

Yes, I felt really pleased,

but there has been another, probably unintended, bonus for me.

I've been a lot less depressed

and I sleep better.

I must say, I am enormously pleased to hear that.

Helping Matthew Kempton crunch the data is Dr Francesca Cormack.

There are three sets of results.

First up, which group improved the most on the cognitive tests.

So, the moment we have all been waiting for for ten weeks.

Table tennis versus walking.

Francesca, Matt, what are the results?

OK. Well, let me show you.

MURMUR OF REACTION FROM AUDIENCE

We see an improvement in both groups,

but, in fact, the walking group show the largest improvement

in cognition after ten weeks.

Are you surprised that walking had so substantially more benefits?

It is certainly an interesting finding.

It could be that those in the walking group

were exerting themselves more and that was stimulating the brain.

The second set of results covers any physical changes

to the structure of the brain.

Amazingly, over just ten weeks,

the brains of the walkers have altered dramatically.

They've a lot more neurons

in the part of the brain called the hippocampus.

A larger hippocampus boosts memory and an ability to learn.

Matthew believes that the walkers had more aerobic activity

and this led to all the extra neurons.

It's possible that this increase in aerobic activity

has actually released some chemicals in the brain

which stimulates these new neurons to be born

and their survival as well.

Parts of the brain of the table tennis players also enlarged.

This was the cortex, the grey matter on the outer surface of the brain.

So, we've got something nice to tell the table tennis group.

We had an increase in cortical thickness

in those playing table tennis.

Our cortex is responsible for complex thinking.

It's especially remarkable that it enlarged

as it is the part of the brain that shrinks the most as we age.

So why do you think this has happened in the table tennis group?

What might be happening is the connections

that grow between the brain cells are increasing

and we know that occurs sometimes with learning a new skill.

So, in this case, the table tennis group,

perhaps, as they were learning this new skill,

there's this change in the microstructure of the brain.

So learning a new skill like table tennis

can improve our mental sharpness and rewire our brain.

Are you surprised by knowing that you've got a thicker

thinking bit of your brain?

I'm delighted.

And I will certainly be making more use of it.

LAUGHTER

Our third and final results measure improvements

in the participants' emotional wellbeing.

Here there was an extra benefit of playing table tennis.

We also measured people's emotional states,

so how they rated positive and negative emotions.

So, they had fewer negative emotions than the walkers did.

So, yes, they seem to be benefiting more from this.

Regular exercise can reduce anxiety

and increase the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain.

And because the table tennis players did their training in a group,

these chemicals encourage us to become extra sociable.

For Ted, his mood lift now makes sense.

Suddenly feeling undepressed more often than usual

is now explained.

Now I'm very happy.

It's proven what I felt was happening

but I couldn't explain it.

I think the social aspect of ours was important.

We felt better for it. We had a great time.

That's really nice. So, are you going to keep doing it?

There is a Monday table tennis that goes on for older people

and I will be going back whenever I can on Mondays.

So both groups saw key improvements to their brains

and we, too, could get the benefits from these different forms

of exercise to help protect our own brains.

That is such a win, with both groups doing really well

across the board and everyone seeing an improvement.

The walkers just pipped the table tennis players

at those tests of cognition, of thinking,

but if I personally had to pick one change

that I would make to my brain

it would be those mood changes that we saw improve so much

in the table tennis players

and that is because having a happy brain is the best way that

I can think of of having a healthy brain.

So, if you have got to put it all into one package,

I guess the answer is you've got to walk to your table tennis lesson.

So there are clearly benefits to the brain from physical exercise.

But what is the best way of exercising the brain itself?

The latest science now shows that what develops your brain

the most is the process of learning a new skill.

What seems increasingly to be more important than any specific activity

is that you have to take up something new

that works different parts of the brain.

Learning a task for the first time, like, for me, the guitar,

stretches your mind more.

It challenges different aspects of the brain.

You have to study how to read music

and you have to be highly co-ordinated with your fingers.

And that is really difficult,

as you can hear.

HE TRIES TO PLAY A SCALE

It's all about stimulating the old grey matter in new ways.

So, let's say you do the same set of Sudoku puzzles for ten years

and you find them relatively easy. That is not challenging your brain.

Life drawing is better for your brain than Sudoku.

Each picture is a fresh challenge,

working different parts of the brain.

My 77-year-old dad, Anthony, has sketched most of his life.

-So why do you do it?

-Because it is not easy to do.

It is not easy to get right.

Every time you've got a blank page,

you've got to try and solve the problem that is set by the model.

Do you think that doing stuff like this keeps you mentally active?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

There is strong scientific evidence for one other skill

being especially good for your brain.

Learning a second language.

All that grammar, pronunciation and memorisation of vocabulary

has been shown to actually increase the size

of different parts of the brain.

So, if we continue to learn as we get older

it can have a dramatically positive impact

and the best activities to do are those that really stretch us.

So far, we've looked at ways to improve brain function.

But how do you also protect against brain disease?

One of the things we worry about most in old age is dementia.

Nearly two thirds of the UK population

put it top of their concerns about old age.

The majority fear it more than cancer.

And I have a personal connection with a particular form of dementia.

My late mother, Edna, had vascular dementia

and that means that over a period of about six or seven years

I saw the mother that I had known for the best part of 60 years

gradually just disappear and be replaced by someone else,

as the illness took its hold and just changed her completely.

My mother was a strong, active woman all her life...

..but in her early 80s, signs of the disease crept in.

As her principal carer, I had, believe you me,

a very sharp learning curve,

dealing with the ever-changing social and medical demands

of the illness, as well, of course, as coming to terms with her death

from an illness for which there is no cure.

Research groups are now working hard to unravel

the causes of dementia all around the world.

I've come to Minnesota in the United States.

Here, a fascinating study is pinpointing why some people

develop Alzheimer's and others don't.

It's all to do with how we learn.

And the research subjects are rather special.

They are nuns.

600 women from the School Sisters Of Notre Dame are involved

in this study that has been running for 30 years.

They make an ideal study group because they tend to lead

healthy lives, so the natural effects of ageing

are easier to measure.

ORGAN PLAYS

One nun taking part is Sister Mary Lewis.

She's a sprightly 99.

How did you learn to play the organ?

My mother saw to it that all of us took piano lessons.

Somebody came to me and said I'm going to teach you organ lessons.

And so that's how I started.

Sister Mary Lewis taught elementary school for most of her career

and that desire to help others has never left her.

When you were asked to be part of this study about the brain,

what did you think?

If I can do some good, I'll be glad to do it.

And now, living 99 years...

..I think that's something.

The researchers continue to run tests on Sister Mary Lewis

to gauge her mental agility.

You can read them in any format you like.

I'm going to ask you to spell it forwards and backwards.

The word is world.

W, O, R, L, D.

And backwards.

D, L, R, O, W.

But the nuns don't just do regular cognitive tests.

They have also agreed to donate their brains.

'These have become a unique resource for scientific study.'

So, this is it?

Oh, my.

You know, it's all very well talking about, what, just over 600 nuns

having donated their brains to science,

but when you actually come in here and see row upon row of them

in these medical tubs,

you really get an idea of just what a great gift

these sisters have given to science.

Neuroscientist Professor Michael Lee

is fascinated by the difference

between a healthy and a diseased brain.

So here we have brains from

a 90-year-old nun who was normal.

And then on this side

we have slices of brain from an 89-year-old nun

who passed away with Alzheimer's.

And you can immediately see the difference between the two.

You don't really need to be a scientist, do you?

Well, a nice healthy brain there

and this one, much smaller and riddled with holes.

The brain that had Alzheimer's disease weighed 800g, approximately,

and the normal brain weighed almost 1,200g,

indicating that the Alzheimer's brain has 400g less mass

than the normal brain.

So something was lost.

Alzheimer's is caused by the build-up

of sticky protein masses in the brain.

These clumps prevent nerve cells from communicating with each other

and so the cells die.

This causes the overall brain to shrink rapidly.

It's almost like having your pipes in your house

being clogged with a very large hairball.

And so what it does is it blocks

the communication between the nerve cells

and then, eventually, the nerve cell will die

and lead to this shrinkage of the brain that you see.

I have to say that when you see the two brains like this,

it really does put it into perspective.

The donation of these brains has allowed scientists to explore

why certain nuns developed dementia and others didn't.

A crucial clue has come from precious documents

relating to their early lives.

These documents highlight how education

and early life experience can actually protect against dementia.

Psychiatrist Dr Laura Hemmy is a director of the nun study.

We have samples of their writing.

We also know quite a bit about their families.

We have all of their academic records.

Each nun wrote a short biographical piece

when they first joined the order.

Sister Helen wrote simply and sparsely.

"There are ten children in the family.

"Six are boys and four are girls.

"Two of the boys are dead."

Compare this with the more sophisticated thoughts

of Sister Emma.

"When I was in the fourth grade, death visited our family,

"taking one to whom I was very particularly attached.

"My little brother, Carl, who was but a year and a half old."

The nuns who produced the most elaborate writings were three times

less likely to develop dementia

than those who expressed themselves more simply.

Well, those two cases are a good reflection

of the outcome of the study.

So, this first one was much more cognitively intact.

This one, this is a Sister who was demented close to the end of life.

On average, those Sisters who had greater idea density

or a greater grammatical complexity in their writing

seemed to have less likelihood of developing dementia.

Michael believes this protection against dementia in some

of the nuns was due to the high level of education

and enriched early life experiences.

More specifically to the nun study is this idea of brain

reserve or brain resiliency.

The early life experience may have somehow afforded the brains

of these individuals with some natural protective,

I guess, ability.

This concept of brain reserve means we should always try to

mentally challenge our children, encouraging them

to stick at school and read more.

But what if we are older?

It seems it's never too late to gain from educating ourselves.

Many studies suggest that continual exercising of the mind

and keeping your brain healthy will be beneficial for the brain,

not only promoting the normal healthy ageing

but also protecting you from a variety of diseases of the brain.

Before I leave America, I'm visiting the Wright-Patterson

air base in Ohio,

where I've heard about a futuristic scientific study.

Scientists here are using a radical new technique to improve

the brainpower of the Air Force.

Now, I admit it may not seem like the obvious location

but it is in fact here that they're developing training techniques

which at some point in the not too distant future

could have a seriously dramatic effect on the power

and the function of the ageing brain.

Using computer-generated images, these airmen are training to view

surveillance footage from drone aircraft.

They search for suspicious activities such as terrorism.

They view for hours on end,

concentrating all the time.

Scientists want to boost the airmen's memory

and attention by putting an electric charge across their scalp.

And it seems to be working.

When you're getting started,

most people can only sustain their attention span

doing this task for a few minutes so wearing this technology

it actually helps you increase your focus.

I definitely feel more awake and attentive

so that I can look at it longer and continue to do this task.

I noticed that my memory is better and my attention span is longer.

Dr Andy McKinley is the scientist behind this brain zapping.

So, how would you gauge the results that you're getting from this?

Well, the folks that have been receiving the stimulation

have been performing about twice as well as those that don't.

-This is pretty exciting stuff, isn't it?

-Oh, yeah. Very exciting.

A doubling in brainpower is impressive.

But what will happen if the kit is used

on someone much older than these young airmen?

Namely, a civilian like me?

Could it benefit an ageing brain?

To find out, Andy will test my attention.

Red dots move around a screen and then randomly, there's a skip.

If I notice a jump, I have to hit the space bar.

My first go is without the brain stimulation

to give a baseline score.

I'll tell you what, this is really boring because at the moment,

it's not missing anything at all.

I can quite understand why you need to have a long attention span

and suddenly it will go, whoops!

Watch closely.

And there it is. The red dots skipped a position.

'After 20 minutes, the test is complete. So, how did I do?'

-Actually, surprisingly, you did perfectly.

-What?

-You didn't miss any.

-Really? Do you know, I thought I had.

-No.

-I didn't miss any?

-Unheard of.

-Unheard of? Say it again loudly!

Our healthy young people usually get a 75%

or 80% at the most.

Older folks usually don't do half that well.

I do the baseline test again

but this time Andy has had to make it more challenging.

I almost daren't blink.

You did very well but not perfect

-so you got about 75% correct this time.

-Really?

-Yeah.

So, that's still very good

-especially considering that we upped the difficulty.

-OK.

Now for the brain stimulation to try to improve that score.

The wires attached to my scalp will supply a tiny electrical charge

to my brain, about 1 to 2 milliamps.

It is safe, I take it?

Oh, yes. It is considered very safe.

There have been no serious side effects.

This is going to go on your head kind of like a headband.

-Yeah?

-How does the head feel?

Yeah, like stinging nettles.

But can it actually improve my performance?

It all seems so bizarre!

The test is complete.

Let's pull up your data here.

-So, you actually got 100% of the target.

-Really?

-So you did perfect on that.

-Flipping heck!

Even on the more difficult setting, you did perfect, so that's great.

So, when my brain is electrically stimulated,

my brain power has increased by a third over my baseline score.

How does my result compare with what you would expect

from the guys you're training?

You're still above what I would expect for our normal military folk.

Should I be applying for a job with the United States Air Force?

I think so, yeah!

So, what exactly is going on?

Connections between brain cells seem to be strengthened

by the small electrical current.

When these connections are enhanced,

memory and attention span is improved.

So, we're changing the activity in the brain in a way that

improves attention so when we stimulate

an attention centre, we're improving their ability

to maintain attention over these long periods of time.

Give me an analogy of how that would actually be translated

in people's ordinary lives,

not just what you're doing here in the laboratory.

So, if you think about some of the skills that require

a lot of practice like driving a manual transmission car

or playing the piano, something that requires a lot of repetition,

that you can't really tell somebody how to do it,

they just have to practise.

We can accelerate that process with the brain stimulation.

Now that the whole thing is finished,

I really do feel as if I've had a major shot of caffeine

because I feel very alive and very alert.

But it does of course beg the question,

then, how could you apply this outside of the military?

Could brain stimulation really have an impact on an ageing brain,

to the point where it not only maximises the brain's ability

but also extends its life?

It's still early days but researchers are looking

at applying similar techniques on older people.

They hope brain stimulation will help many others enjoy

better memory and attention levels.

The final destination on our search around the world

takes me to California, home to a cutting-edge project

that hopes to slow down Alzheimer's disease.

It's also some of the most surprising science

I've ever heard about.

This is what I would call a typically Californian idea.

So, it's new age, it's blue skies, it's wildly optimistic.

It sounds like the kind of thing that a second rate sci-fi

B-movie scriptwriter would have come up with on a bad day.

But apart from that,

I'm totally open-minded about what we're going to see.

Scientists at Stanford University

are carrying out a truly remarkable set of experiments.

They want to find out if injections of young people's blood

could counteract the effects of dementia in the elderly.

'Professor Tony Wyss-Coray is one of the lead scientists.

'The initial work has been done on mice.

'Different aged mice represent humans at various ages.'

Most of the organs in a mouse age just like humans.

This mouse is an equivalent of about 70 years in human years.

It's 21 months old.

This one, the young mouse, is about a 20-year-old person.

So what we try is to have mice that represent a young adult

and then an old person who is maybe at risk of developing

dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Older mice were given an infusion of blood plasma from younger mice

to see if it had any effect on the old mouse brains.

So, first we wanted to see, do their brains look

more like younger brains?

That was really the most amazing finding.

Tony and his team discovered that the injection of young blood

into an old mouse rejuvenated it.

These are brain cells of the old mouse beforehand.

After an infusion of young blood,

the new brain cells tripled in number.

They had younger brains.

To see then that just young blood would actually

have an effect on an old brain was just crazy.

But what difference would these brain changes make

to the memory of the old mice?

On an experimental table full of holes,

an untreated old mouse had been trained to discover

the only true escape route and ignore all the false holes.

He is then tested again to see

if he can remember where the escape hole was.

This old mouse is about the equivalent to a 65-year-old human.

You can easily see that it has essentially no clue

-where that hole is.

-Right.

After nearly a minute, he is still struggling to find the escape route.

But if we give an old mouse, a sibling of this mouse,

plasma from a young mouse, you see a striking difference.

-Look, he's going for it.

-He's going for it.

-That is so striking, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

The old mouse with young blood took only 24 seconds

instead of a minute to find his escape route.

There's been an extraordinary improvement in his memory.

-That video makes it clear, doesn't it?

-It's very impressive, yeah.

This has therapeutic potential.

Because the experiments on the mice were so successful,

-a human trial using young blood has just got the go-ahead.

-Very good.

Take this finger, touch your nose.

Dr Sharon Sha is the neurologist in charge of the patients.

Her job is to carry out regular mental tests

on the 18 volunteers taking part.

All of whom have symptoms of early Alzheimer's disease.

Half of the volunteers are receiving blood plasma from young people.

You are strong.

Sharon is hoping that just like with the mice, the plasma will

improve their memory and slow down the progression of the disease.

Very good. Touch it. Can you touch it again? Touch over here.

Is this going to work or is it sort of Frankenstein science?

We hear about Frankenstein science, we hear about vampires

and there's some truth to that. It's kind of exciting.

I look at my children.

I have two kids, four and one years old, and they heal so quickly.

Is there something in them that makes them heal faster?

Is there something in older people

and people with Alzheimer's disease that slows down the healing process?

It might not be that this is the only thing that is required

to help people.

Is it the Fountain of Youth? It might be.

But I think it would be a huge boon

for understanding that degenerative disease is a little bit different

than the way we used to think about it.

The final results of the experimental trial

will not be known for some time but if successful,

it could transform the future treatment of Alzheimer's.

For now, there are many changes that we can all do to help

slow down ageing.

As this series has shown, so much of how our bodies

and minds age is largely dependent on our lifestyle choices.

Diet is important.

Eating less meat and more fruit and veg could add years to our lives.

As can finding ways to counteract stress.

Keeping our minds challenged with something new is a good way

to keep them in peak condition.

And exercise plays a key role,

especially if it engages you mentally, physically and socially.

There are still so many things that we personally can do to take

control of ourselves in the way that you are, for instance,

learning the guitar and French, and how's that going, by the way?

Some days are better than others! Let's move on.

But the good news is that we have discovered through these programmes

that one of the best things you can do as an overall exercise

for body and brain is to dance.

It's great for your balance, it's a great aerobic exercise,

it's wonderful for spatial awareness, it's very social

and it uses the brain - remembering the steps,

listening to the music, so it ticks all the boxes.

So, Chris, if you want to live a long and healthy life,

in mind and body, you're going to have to start dancing.

Well, maybe tomorrow. Dancing isn't really for me.

Right now. No, no, right now.

-These shoes.

-Nothing to do with the shoes.

-That's it. There we go.

-I knew you'd pull a caper like this!

-OK.

-Right.

Back with your left foot, take your right foot across,

-bring your left foot in.

-Look at that!

-Look at that!

Right foot backwards towards me. Left across, bring the other one in.

Left foot back, right across, bring the left foot in,

right foot forwards...