This week I’ve learnt about Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and Huntington’s. Then there was autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I’ve blogged on suicide and child abuse. So it’s some relief to end the conference blog with a poster that has the excellent title of “No disease in the brain of a 115-year-old woman”.
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper pledged to donate to her body to medical research in 1972. Almost 30 years later, at the age of 111, she wondered whether medical research still had any interest in her body. So she called the University of Groningen, near where she lived in the Netherlands.
Gert Holstege, a neurosurgeon at the university, released that van Andel-Schipper presented a rare opportunity. He popped round and they chatted about politics and van Andel-Schipper’s favourite soccer team, Ajax. She appeared totally alert. Cognitive tests later placed her in the range of performance associated with a 50-70 year-old. So when she died of cancer at 115, Holstege was able to study her brain to answer an intriguing but hard to answer question: do humans inevitably develop some form of brain disease as they age?
Van Andel-Schipper’s brain tells us that the answer is no, at least up to age 115. Her brain was almost totally undamaged. In fact she was in remarkably good shape overall, says Holstege, and could have lived for several moer years if she hadn’t developed cancer.
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