Social networks, social relationships, and their effects on the aging mind and brain

Chapter 2. Ashida & Schafer: Social networks, social relationships, and their effects on the aging mind and brain. In The Wiley Handbook on the Aging Mind and Brain. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118772034.ch2

Summary: People, like cells in a person’s body, are parts of dynamic systems and a network of support. Ashida and Schafer explore how social interactions at various levels affect healthy aging, much as cells in a body depend on functions of other parts. Mechanistic details of how such social interactions affect mind and brain health remain unclear, and individual variations tend to buck trends, yet common themes of social dependency emerge. Evidence strongly supports that caregiver and care receiver form dyads driven, for better or worse, by interactive dynamics at multiple levels. Social networks and interactions benefit healthy aging, but few attempts have been made to measure these interactions and harness their potential for improving healthy mind and brain aging in a rapidly changing society––where family interactions are progressively replaced by distant social networks in cyberspace. The effects of these dynamic changes on healthy aging of an ever-increasing population of seniors ready and willing to maintain social engagement are critical areas to be explored.