Mental reserve is the capacity of brains to enable people to function adequately despite disease or damage to the brain.
Because brain damage often impairs memory important to solving problems, mental reserve, cognitive reserve, or brain reserve are terms used in conjunction with some memory studies.
The term cognitive reserve has been used since the 1980s when autopsies revealed signs of Alzheimer's disease in people who functioned adequately. It appeared they had sufficient mental or cognitive reserve capacity to compensate for the disease.
Studies that investigate cognitive reserve are generally addressing the Cognitive Reserve Hypothesis. The Cognitive Reserve Hypothesis states that intellectual enrichment produces cognitive efficiency, which results in Cognitive Reserve as a protection against expected disease-linked cognitive impairment.
Cognitive reserve is an inferred concept. That is, when people do better than expected following brain trauma or disease, clinicians infer that the better performance is due to cognitive reserve (Schwartz et al., 2016).
Carolyn Schwartz and her team (2016) suggest cognitive reserve should be a broader or multidimensional concept than the typical focus on cognitive skills. They include physical, socio-emotional, and spiritual components.
Brains affected by disease require extra effort to function as well as before the disease. Diseases that can affect the brain include Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, stroke, and forms of dementia.
High levels of cognitive reserve are associated with people who have high levels of education and occupational status as well as high participation in nonwork activities. Cognitive activity is generally considered to be a helpful factor in high levels of cognitive reserve.
An extensive study conducted by Isobel Evans and her team (2018) explored the role of social activity and cognitive reserve. Following is part of their conclusion:
After controlling for age, gender, education, and physically
limiting health conditions, social isolation was associated with cognitive function
at baseline and two year follow-up. Cognitive reserve moderated this
association longitudinally. Findings suggest that maintaining a socially active
lifestyle in later life may enhance cognitive reserve and benefit cognitive
function. (Abstract)
Scientists who study cognitive reserve include neuropsychologists, neurologists, neuroscientists and behavioral neurologists.
References
Evans, IEM,
Llewellyn, DJ, Matthews FE, Woods, RT, Brayne, C, Clare, L, et al. (2018)
Social isolation, cognitive reserve, and cognition in healthy older people. PLoS
ONE 13(8): e0201008.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201008
Schwartz, C.E., Rapkin,
B.D. & Healy, B.C. Reserve and Reserve-building activities research: key
challenges and future directions. BMC Neurosci 17, 62 (2016).
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12868-016-0297-0
