[Health Column] The Amazing Abilities of the Middle-Aged Brain

'What is that person thinking?' We are curious about other people's minds. 'Why am I having these thoughts?' In fact, we don't even know what our own minds are like. How else could there be songs and movies titled "I Don't Even Know My Own Mind"? Throughout history and across all ages and genders, people have always been curious about the mind.

So where is our mind located? When we confess to someone we love, our chest beats faster. The chocolates given to lovers on Valentine's Day are heart-shaped. The heart refers to the organ in our body called the heart. Does that mean the mind is in the heart? No. The heart actually beats due to the actions of our brain.

Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, already claimed that "human joy, happiness, laughter and jokes, pain and sorrow, tears are phenomena that occur in the brain." He also said, "Madness, confusion, fear, and anxiety are all functions of the brain." That is correct. The human mind is in the brain. The brain weighs only 1.2 to 1.4 kg but is made up of 100 billion nerve cells. Each nerve cell forms 1,000 to over 10,000 synapses, which are junctions connecting to other nerve cells. This shows how complex and tightly connected nerve cells are in the brain.

Everyone worries about aging. Everyone worries about getting sick. Does brain function decline entirely as we age? Valerie Reyna, a neuroscientist at Cornell University, says, "Literal memory begins to decline after youth, but 'gist memory' remains intact and even improves into late old age."

Gist memory refers to the ability to understand and remember the underlying theme. In other words, as we age, we better grasp the big picture. Linda Fried, an aging expert at Columbia University, also says, "As we age, we can use objective knowledge, life experience, and intuition, integrating all of these to creatively solve complex problems that we couldn't solve when we were younger."

Compared to young pilots, middle-aged pilots may take longer to adapt to new machinery. However, the most important skill of a pilot is to keep the plane safely on course. This ability reportedly improves with age.

A dramatic example of this occurred in 2009. The protagonist was Chesley Sullenberger III, a 57-year-old white-haired US Airways pilot. Two minutes after takeoff, the plane collided with a flock of birds, causing both engines to fail simultaneously. To avoid an emergency landing in the middle of the city, he calmly performed a water landing on the nearby Hudson River, rescuing all 155 passengers and crew in what became known as the "Miracle on the Hudson." Research shows that the brain's prefrontal cortex matures much more slowly and declines slowly. The most active period of this area is between ages 43 and 55. While many think brain function peaks in the 20s or 30s, it is actually better in middle age, especially for decision-making.

These days, I often go somewhere intending to bring a few things but end up doing something else and returning without them. Then, much later, I suddenly remember the items I forgot. When answering students' questions and talking for a while, I sometimes forget why I was saying something. As I have entered middle age, I feel my memory declining and my confidence decreasing accordingly. But let's not be sad. Let's be courageous. As the title of a book by Daniel Amen, an American psychiatrist, brain imaging expert, and bestselling author, says, the brain does not age. It only matures.

Seongwon Noh, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Hanyang University Hospital