Eli5 why do people get dumber /forgetful when they get older?
In: Other
Over the course of a life, you accumulate little bits of cellular damage that the body can’t perfectly repair. In some cases, damage occurs in the brain, for a variety of reasons, and this damage causes brain cells to lose some of their dendrites (the bits that connect them to other brain cells). In some cases they can even be killed permanently. This means fewer functional connections in the brain, and since everything the brain does is the result of how cells connect to each other, reduced overall brain function.
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