Derek Thompson

Your research spans memory, aging, Alzheimer's, dementia.

What got you into this space?

Let me just stop you right there before you finish your story.

I would love to make sure that we retrace some of the vocabulary here.

Tell me what aphasia is.

Sure.

And then also, could you slow down and distinguish between what one might call normal memory loss and what is diagnosed as dementia or Alzheimer's?

And when we're defining dementia and Alzheimer's, what are we talking about here?

You spent decades studying a phenomenon you call super aging.

You've talked a little bit about how there's this wide distribution and cognitive abilities among people over 65, right?

Some people are at the lower end.

They might be diagnosed with Alzheimer's and some are at the higher end, right?

These, I presume, are the super agers.

And to be clear to listeners, this is not about who stays alive the longest, right?

They might think of super agers as someone who lives to like 120 years old.

That's not what we're talking about here.

We're talking about people-

Absolutely not.

When they're 85, have the mind of a 55-year-old.

Tell me about these folks, super-agers.