The Neurofix

That was a rather sad article. The juxtaposition of how her parents were in their younger years to how they were later in life is disconcerting. As a 25 year old, I don't think my fear of death is necessarily greater than the average person, but I do seem to have a stronger fear of aging than most people my age. And that fear is almost entirely due to the way the human brain changes as it ages. I could handle a deteriorating body, but a deteriorating mind is a horrifying thought, since the mind essentially constitutes who I am. Alzheimers and dementia unnerve me. Less acutely, even the way that people tend to get "stuck in their ways" and quit trying new things later in life scares me as well. I make a conscious effort to keep trying new things, even if I think I won't like them. Some people are afraid of change, but I'm afraid of monotony, boredom, and routine — traits that characterize the concluding years of many lives that were formerly full of excitement.

As someone who hasn't read much about this sort of research, I'm impressed and hopeful for the future based on the advances described here. I just watched my maternal grandparents go through the sort of horrible, prolonged, process of slow brain-death (alzheimers, parkinsons) and general neural decay before death. Heart breaking. For those who know more about this: how far out are we? Tens of years? Hundreds? What stands in the way?