What Is Reserve and How Do We Get It?

Yaakov Stern, PhD

The concept of reserve has been put forward to account for individual differences in

susceptibility to age-related brain changes and pathologic changes, such as those that occur in

Alzheimer’s disease. The concept of cognitive reserve suggests that the brain actively attempts

to cope with brain damage by using pre-existing cognitive processing approaches or by enlisting

compensatory approaches. This talk will review the theory underlying the concept of reserve,

and ideas of brain reserve, cognitive reserve and brain maintenance; and epidemiologic evidence

for the various lifestyle factors that might contribute to reserve.