Is Your Job Good for Your Brain?

The journal Neurology, ran an article about a recent study on the impact occupations have on workers’ brains.  Occupational complexity and lifetime cognitive abilities opens with a recognition that “[t]here is a growing body of research suggesting that more stimulating lifestyles, including more complex work environments, are associated with better cognitive outcomes in later life.” (citations omitted).

In the discussion, the authors note that “[t]he … findings support the hypothesis that higher complexity of work is associated with later-life cognitive performance….”  After discussing the specifics of the study, the authors offer this summary “the current study  supports an association between more complex lifetime occupations and better cognitive abilities in later life. Of note, the evidence in favor of the differential preservation of cognitive abilities has been examined in the context of accounting for the likelihood of persevered differentiation, a major issue in the search for determinants of cognitive aging.”

The full text of the article is available here.