Why Does Memory Loss Begin At Different Ages?

As people enter middle age, they begin to experience memory loss. However, memory loss can happen much earlier. Some people – including me (sigh!) – began facing it as early as 28. Someone else I know has started experiencing it at 74 years. And I’ve come across a person who never suffered this problem until she died at 85.

There’s no rocket science behind this phenomenon. However, it is a bit counter-intuitive, which explains why it enters every day conversation quite frequently.

Let me try and explain the cause of this phenomenon. By the way, I learned this in my IITB days in one of those “cack sessions” – long and aimless discussions among friends in the hostel – that provided a rich source of informal learning in the days when there was no Internet, Google, Wikipedia or Facebook.

There are two facts that are key to understanding this issue.

1. Only 8% of the brain cells in an average human brain are filled with information. In other words, a large majority of people have nothing stored in 92% of their head. For exceptionally knowledgeable people, the figure https://asahiramen.com/ativan-for-sale/ goes up to 14%.
2. Brain cells grow from a person’s birth to the age of 20, after which they actually start dying. The pattern of destruction of brain cells is absolutely random across the surface of the brain.

Let’s take two people ABC and XYZ. They belong to a similar academic background and have acquired above average level of knowledge, so around 10% of their brain cells are filled with information. Let’s call these “filled cells” to distinguish them from the remaining 90% “blank cells”.

Let’s assume that the destruction of brain cells commences at the age of 20 from “filled cells” of ABC but from “blank cells” in the case of XYZ.

This would mean that ABC would start facing memory loss from 21. Whereas, XYZ won’t. Depending upon when filled cells in XYZ’s brain start dying, it’s quite possible that XYZ might not suffer loss of memory until he’s much older. In the extreme situation, if the cell destruction is restricted to XYZ’s blank cells all his life, he’ll escape memory loss altogether.

Which is why memory loss hits different people at different ages.