Different parts of the brain work best at different ages

I can't find any scientific references to back it up (I think I first heard it said on Khan Academy), but I like the idea that the brain is like a muscle - you need to exercise to keep it strong.

It's only anecdotal evidence, but in comparing seniors I know, the ones who are still mentally sharp never gave up on learning new things.

It's why I still love coding even though it's probably not optimal for my career. Better to be a destitute scholar than a mush-headed middle manager.

I have a theory that there are different types of brains that peak on different cognitive skills at different ages. So while I think it's a noble effort to find the average and standard deviation of the entire population, I'd be more curious to see if they can't find clusters of different types of brains that behave similarly but perhaps very differently than the "global average".

As a clinician research showing cognitive abilities varying with age is unsurprising. Unfortunately the full report is hidden behind a paywall. The article mentions a plan to make the datasets used in the study publicly accessible. That's great but that idea should also be applied to the findings described in the article.

Now that I'm becoming "old", the effects of aging on cognition are personally all the more relevant but even long ago it was clear to me that aging was associated with cognitive decline in some respects and gain in others.

The research confirms ability to absorb and recall random pieces of information is greater in youth than later years. One example is the common complaint of people in their 50's and beyond of delayed recall of names of people or objects as though their "circuits" are not working as quickly as earlier in life.

The article points out the late peak of accumulated knowledge, which is consistent with my own observations. However, I believe this is not just a matter of knowing static facts, but represents the subtle element of extended experience that's difficult to define or measure via tests like the WAIS used in the research. The contribution of experience is from problem solving over long duration, conferring the ability to better predict the outcome of particular actions or decision paths.

The value of experience is probably what is meant when referring to the wisdom of the old, though given the frequent discussions on HN of ageism in tech fields, the benefits of wisdom may be unappreciated.

Anecdotally, my rapid retention social memory of names, faces, and salient details improved (self-) noticeably beginning around the age of 22 (i.e. the last 1.5 years), without conscious training or significant environment change.