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Researchers have found that peoples' mental abilities peak at 22 before beginning to deteriorate just five years later.
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Researchers have found that peoples' mental abilities peak at 22 before beginning to deteriorate just five years later.
Professor Timothy Salthouse said the results suggested that therapies designed to prevent or reverse age-related conditions may need to start earlier, long before people become pensioners.
Almost half of over 50s 'unaware of leading cause of blindness'" Results converge on a conclusion that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s," he said.
The study of 2,000 men and women lasted over seven years. The respondents, aged between 18-60, were asked to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.
Similar tests are often used to diagnose mental disabilities and declines, including dementia.
The research by the University of Virginia found that in nine out of 12 tests the average age at which the top performance was achieved was 22.
The first age at which performance was significantly lower than the peak scores was 27 – for three tests of reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualisation. Memory was shown to decline from the average age of 37. In the other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42.
However, the report published in the academic journal Neurobiology Of Ageing, found that abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until at the age of 60.
Twenty-seven has long had negative connotations, as it is the age at which many popular musicians died, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain.
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(Agencies)
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研究人員發現，人的智力在22歲時達到頂峰，而僅在五年之后就會開始衰退。
蒂莫西?索爾特豪斯教授稱，研究結果表明，旨在預防或扭轉與年齡有關的癥狀的治療應盡早開始，而非等到退休。
在50歲以上的人中，有近一半的人“不清楚導致智力衰退的主要原因”。蒂莫西稱，研究發現，對于身體健康，受過教育的成年人來說，與年齡有關的一些認知衰退癥狀在二三十歲時就開始了。
該研究持續七年之久，共對兩千名18歲至60歲之間的男性和女性進行了調查。研究人員要求調查對象做圖形猜謎，復述單詞和故事細節，以及指認字母和符號類型等各項測試。
類似的測試常被用于診斷智力殘疾和包括癡呆癥在內的智力衰退等。
弗吉尼亞大學開展的這項研究發現，在總共12項測試中，其中有9項獲得最高分的調查對象平均年齡是22歲。
從邏輯推理、反應速度和空間想象力三項測試的結果來看，調查對象的得分首次明顯低于之前的最高水平是在27歲。記憶力開始衰退的平均年齡是37歲。在其它幾項測試中，調查對象的得分在42歲時開始降低。
但發表于《衰老神經生物學》學術期刊上的這項研究報告表明，從詞匯或常識測試的結果看，基于知識積累的能力到了60歲會開始增長。
27歲一直是個不太吉利的年齡，很多流行歌手在27歲時去世，其中包括吉米?亨德里克斯、吉姆?莫里森、布賴恩?瓊斯、賈尼斯?喬普林和柯特?科本。
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（實習生許雅寧 英語點津姍姍編輯）
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