Yet another reason to start exercising your brain today. A study, recently published in the journal Neurology, found a link between education levels and recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI). The longer the education, the more likely a full recovery from TBI with no detectable disability one year after injury. It is believed that this greater healing capacity is due to “cognitive reserve”. Much like a fit and healthy body can recover faster and more fully after injury, a regularly engaged brain may be more resilient after TBI.
The Numbers
The numbers are impressive. 769 patients participated in the study. Of those, 219 were free of detectable disability one year after TBI. Only 9.7% of the patients who had not finished high school made a full recovery, compared to nearly 40% of those who had 16 years of education, enough to obtain a bachelor’s degree. Of those who fell in between on education levels, 31% made a full recovery. The recovery rate was greatest in patients with advanced degrees.
Cognitive Reserve
Brain injury recovery is unpredictable, and doctors just cannot tell someone if or when they will recover based on the severity of the injury or other factors that we would normally expect to produce a reasonable estimate. TBI victims recover at different rates and to different degrees.
Cognitive reserve may be why the results vary so greatly from one patient to the next, even when the injuries are similar. Cognitive reserve is the brain’s ability to be resilient when injured. It is a topic which is actively being studied with enthusiasm. Exactly how it works has not yet been determined but it is believed that brains with greater cognitive reserve are able to work around the injury and better build new neural pathways to compensate for the injury and regain function.
What it Means To You
The study doesn’t tell us everything. It is still unclear whether education helps build cognitive reserve, or if those with greater cognitive reserve are more likely to achieve more academically. The standard used to measure disability in the study could also account for some of the results, and certainly those who have no “detectable” disability may still suffer symptoms and impairments.
However, this is not the first study to find that education and exercising your brain can serve as a protective measure against disabilities from brain injuries and diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Overall, a well-tuned brain is in the best position to heal and to resist decline.
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