What happens to your brain after 50?

By Sola Ogundipe
It starts innocently. A name refuses to come. You walk into a room and forget why you’re there. Your phone is in your hand, yet you spend several minutes looking for it. An old friend’s face is familiar, but the name just won’t come. “It’s old age,” someone says. For millions of people, especially as parents and relatives move into their 50s, 60s and 70s, such moments have become almost too ordinary to question. But scientists are beginning to see the ageing brain differently. New research has found that the human brain undergoes a major biological shift between about 50 and 75. Deep inside the brain, some of the immune cells that have been there since early development...