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At face value, The Healthy Aging Brain might be seen as written for a specific category of people only, namely older people. It is amazing, however, how every age group could find inspiration and hope from its pages. It is itself a story of personal development through the human life span with the potential for a hopeful and healthy old age as we become equipped with knowledge and an array of helpful “tools” to support us in getting there. Cozolino, influenced by what seems to have been a rich and nourishing relationship with his grandmother, his years of experience as a psychotherapist, and extensive knowledge from years of study and research into neuroscience and human history has produced an inspiring, very readable, and enjoyable book.
It addresses some existential issues we all contend with at one point or another, the uncertainty of having a healthy brain in our old age and indeed up to death. More so, scientists have previously suggested that the brain begins to deteriorate right after early adulthood. Is it then up to chance what happens to us in old age? Are we at the mercy of conditions beyond our control, or can we take an active and deliberate role in how much of its youthful and healthy features our brains are able to retain as we age? Another important subject Cozolino tackles is our models and beliefs around ageing and older people. A crippling fear of, and sometimes repulsion, for this age group can be responsible for our avoidance and the somewhat hostile attitudes in our social circles and society in general. The Healthy Aging Brain attempts to alleviate this fear, re-introduce us to the world of older people anew, and almost causes us to fall in love with them, some of us, for the first time.
The human brain is at the centre of this book and Cozolino so skilfully paints an interwoven cohesive picture of it, as well as the individual and society into a unified one. He suggests that both the individual and society are healthy to the extent that the br