MR HO Weng Toh is not your typical 86-year-old. He plays tennis, golf, billiards and bridge, and swims regularly.
And at 65, former nurse trainer Madam Cheang Swee Neo has a busy schedule - administering hydrotherapy to disabled children and swimming twice a week, when she is not providing palliative care to other seniors.
An ambitious five-year study here - the first of its kind in Asia, is hoping to find out what makes them tick.
SingHealth's Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (CNL) is now studying the brains of 269 healthy people aged 55 and over, through a process called functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) - a non-invasive imaging method which gives three-dimensional images of any body part. It aims to study 350 people in all.
The project, called the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Brain Study (S-LABS), is funded by the Biomedical Research Council of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, and the United States' National Institute on Ageing.
S-LABS is studying individual differences in brain function and performance, said the study's principal investigator, Associate Professor Michael Chee. By understanding these processes, he hopes to find ways to help more elderly people lead healthy, productive lives.
While there are similar studies in the West, the results may not apply here because of genetic and lifestyle differences, he explained. 'We need to do an actual study on the Asian brains,' he said.
The MRI images will be augmented with data collected from an extensive questionnaire, as well as a blood test. Part of the blood samples will also be kept aside to create a genetic databank of the participants.
Healthy ageing is particularly critical in Singapore and the region - newly developed societies in Asia are greying at two to three times the rate of those in the United States and Western Europe.
CNL already has collaborations with institutions all over the world, including the Mayo Clinic, the Massachusetts General Hospital, Duke University and research groups in Oxford University.
The team's work is already bearing some fruit.
One preliminary result, a joint effort with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US, is the discovery that the elderly process complex visual scenes differently from their younger counterparts. It found that the elderly tend to focus more on changing background scenes than static foreground objects.
The end goal, said Prof Chee, is to know how to exercise the brain and keep it fit.
'Hopefully, we can help the elderly function at accustomed levels, well into their golden years.'
The 46-year-old added jokingly: 'It could be useful to me, as I move towards joining their ranks.'
mengyc@sph.com.sg
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