Sel Yackley is a busy woman.<\/p>\n
She makes jewelry, sings in a choir and knits hats and scarves for the homeless. She also reads with her book club, goes to the gym a few times a week and is active in several civic organizations. According to her Fitbit, she still manages to sleep an average of 7\u00bd hours a night.<\/p>\n
At 85, Yackley is a \u201cSuperAger.\u201d That is, someone who is 80 or older and retains the memory capacity \u2014 based on delayed word recall testing \u2014 of a person at least two to three decades younger.<\/p>\n
Dr. M. Marsel Mesulam, who founded the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer\u2019s Disease at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the late 1990s, first defined a SuperAger. Mesulam Center researchers reflected on a quarter-century of SuperAger study in an analysis published Thursday in “Alzheimer\u2019s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer\u2019s Association.”<\/p>\n
Yackley, who is among the nearly 300 people who have participated in the Northwestern University SuperAging Program (NUSAP) since 2000, is proof that impaired memory isn\u2019t always a hallmark of aging.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to be role models for other people who are getting older,\u201d she said. \u201cTake good care of your health and eat right and be sociable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTake good care of your health and eat right and be sociable,\u201d says Sel Yackley, 85, one of the participants in the Northwestern University SuperAging Program. (Courtesy Sel Yackley)<\/p>\n
Yackley, a longtime Chicagoan who hails from Turkey, acknowledges that genetic factors may be contributing to her youthful cognition. Her mother and father lived to be 86 and 88, respectively. On the other hand, Yackley feels her joie de vivre helps keep her mind sharp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s partly your determination to live a long life and your activities that enable you to do so,\u201d she said, encouraging older adults to pursue \u201cthings that make you proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yackley\u2019s peers in the SuperAger program share a spirit of connection, according to Tamar Gefen, a co-author of the analysis and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s necessarily social connections, it\u2019s just connections in general,\u201d Gefen said. \u201cThere are people who are connected to the land, there are people who are connected to their ancestry, people who are connected to their grandchildren, who are connected to their art.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gefen added, \u201cYou don\u2019t see a lot of detached SuperAgers.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, people can\u2019t simply will themselves into \u201csuperaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 7 million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, according to the Alzheimer\u2019s Association, a statistic that\u2019s projected to soar to nearly 13 million by 2050. About 1 in 9 people 65 and older have this most common form of dementia.<\/p>\n
At age 45, the lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer\u2019s is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men. SuperAgers are defying these odds.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenetics is a part of it, definitely,\u201d Gefen said. \u201cWe know that there are major risk genes for Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and SuperAgers don\u2019t have those genes.\u201d<\/p>\n
For example, research has shown that people of European descent with two copies of a gene called APOE4 have a 60% chance of developing Alzheimer\u2019s by age 85.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy interest is, are there genes that SuperAgers harbor that can actually protect them against getting Alzheimer\u2019s disease?\u201d Gefen said. \u201cAnd is there a gene, let\u2019s say that\u2019s related to the immune system, that is over-expressed in SuperAgers that can be manipulated to then help individuals protect themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n
As she continues searching for such answers, Gefen said her team\u2019s most exciting findings have stemmed from the brains of SuperAgers who have died.<\/p>\n
Gefen and her colleagues at the Mesulam Center have autopsied nearly 80 SuperAger brains and compared them to those of their \u201cneurotypical\u201d peers. They focused on two indicators of Alzheimer\u2019s: protein buildups in the brain called amyloid plaques and tau tangles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we found in memory centers of the SuperAging brain is that there are a lot fewer tau tangles,\u201d Gefen said. \u201cBut interestingly, amyloid or plaque pathology doesn\u2019t really differ a whole lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because a number of Alzheimer\u2019s treatments single out amyloid plaques, SuperAgers bring such treatment methods into question, Gefen said: \u201cAre we really targeting the right target if SuperAgers and their peers have similar amounts of amyloid?\u201d<\/p>\n
Other findings include that SuperAgers tend to have larger entorhinal neurons, which are nerve cells that are key to memory, and more von Economo neurons, which are nerve cells critical to social behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guess is that [SuperAgers] are probably born with these kinds of structural protections,\u201d Gefen said. \u201cBut we\u2019re now going really deep into the molecular mechanisms of the cell in order to figure out what is keeping that cell strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yackley has toured Northwestern\u2019s Brain Bank, where she is \u201cproud\u201d her own brain will one day be sent for study. She\u2019s also making plans to donate the rest of her body to science.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, maybe my heart or my kidneys can be used for transplanting,\u201d Yackley said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be underground.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Yackley would be grateful to make it to 90, she said. She maintains a to-do list and aims to log about 4,200 steps a day. The retired journalist, travel agent and memoir author is already at work on her next undertaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am trying to put together a scrapbook of my life, and that\u2019s a big project,\u201d Yackley said.<\/p>\n
The study of SuperAgers is a rapidly evolving field, and researchers are eager to uncover the secrets behind their remarkable cognitive abilities. By studying the brains of SuperAgers, scientists hope to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to their exceptional memory and longevity. As the population ages, the importance of understanding SuperAgers and their unique characteristics will only continue to grow.<\/p>\n
Q: What is a SuperAger?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: A SuperAger is someone who is 80 or older and retains the memory capacity of a person at least two to three decades younger.<\/p>\n Q: Is SuperAging genetic?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: While genetics play a role in SuperAging, it is not the only factor. Lifestyle choices, such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, also contribute to exceptional cognitive abilities.<\/p>\n Q: How do SuperAgers\u2019 brains differ from those of their peers?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: SuperAgers tend to have fewer tau tangles and larger entorhinal neurons, which are key to memory. They also have more von Economo neurons, which are critical to social behavior.<\/p>\n Q: Can anyone become a SuperAger?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: While it is not possible to guarantee SuperAging, making healthy lifestyle choices and staying engaged in activities that challenge the mind and body can help support cognitive health as we age.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Uncovering the Secrets of ‘SuperAgers’ Sel Yackley is a busy woman. She makes jewelry, sings in a choir and knits hats and scarves for the homeless. She also reads with her book club, goes to the gym a few times a week and is active in several civic organizations. According to her Fitbit, she still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-wellness"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media.nbcmiami.com\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-1144557801.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&fit=2121,1414&w=1920&resize=1920,1280&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18657,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654\/revisions\/18657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}