Platinum Club

Let’s Be Brain Smart

 The Healthy Aging Brain: Sustaining Attachment, Attaining Wisdom, by Louis Cozolino

The Healthy Aging Brain is packed with pertinent research findings, fascinating anecdotes, and useful insights on how to maximize the functioning of the human brain.

Cozolino’s approach to the subject is special in that he stresses the role of relationships in building, shaping, and sustaining the brain. In particular, he values the grandchild-grandparent relationship, which facilitates brain stimulation across generations, establishes the importance of elders in the community, boosts elders’ self-image, and produces a positive effect on their cognitive health.

 The Healthy Aging Brain also delves into the topic of wisdom, which is defined as the embodiment of knowledge and compassion in the context of relationships. Cozolino explains how our brains become better equipped to reflect wisdom as they age due to long-term neural activation. He calls for a renewal of the respect once given to elders for this quality, which is personified by such skills as their storytelling ability.

Following is a detailed listing of the contents:

• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction

PART I. BUILDING THE SOCIAL BRAIN

• The Brain As a Social Organ
• Creating Attachment
• Sustaining the Social Brain: A New Look

PART II. THE SOCIAL BRAIN ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN

• Current Theories of the Aging Brain
• Growth and Adaptation
• Hemispheres and Hormones

PART III. ATTACHMENT AND WISDOM

• The Emergence of Wisdom
• The Maturation of Emotion
• Challenges to Wisdom
• Stories as Nurturance

PART IV. BODY AND SOUL

• Nurturing Your Body
• Nurturing Your Relationships
• Grandparenting
• Optimal Challenge and Maximum Inclusion

APPENDIX

• 52 Ways to Avoid Hardening of the Categories: A Program of Personal Experiments
• Suggested Readings
• Credits
• References