Managers have larger brain: Study

CANBERRA: Managing other people at work triggers structural changes in
the brain, protecting its memory and learning centre well into old
age, an Australian study revealed on Friday.

University of New South Wales (UNSW) researchers have, for the first
time, identified a clear link between managerial experience throughout
a person's working life, and the integrity and larger size of an
individual's hippocampus (the area of the brain responsible for
learning and memory) at the age of 80, reports China's news agency
Xinhua.


"We found a clear relationship between the number of employees a
person may have supervised or been responsible for and the size of the
hippocampus," Dr Michael Valenzuela, leader of Regenerative
Neuroscience in UNSW's School of Psychiatry, said in a statement
released on Friday.

"This could be linked to the unique mental demands of managing people,
which requires continuous problem solving, short term memory and a lot
of emotional intelligence, such as the ability to put yourself in
another person's shoes. Over time this could translate into the
structural brain changes we observed."

The findings confirm that staying mentally active promotes brain
health, potentially warding off neurodegenerative diseases such as
Alzheimer's.

Using MRI imagery in a cohort of 75-92-year-olds, researchers found
larger hippocampal volumes in those with managerial experience
compared to those without. The effect was also seen in women who had
taken on managerial roles in nursing or teaching, for example.

The study was presented at this week's Brain Sciences UNSW symposium
Brain Plasticity: The Adaptable Brain, held in Australia. - Bernama



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