Any way you look at it, the research is pretty straightforward. In the NYT piece, “The One Quality Most “Super-Agers” Share, by Dana G. Smith, 7 August 2025, after 25 years of research on this notable group, here’s what stands out.

Super-agers are a diverse bunch; they don’t share a magic diet, exercise regimen or medication. But the one thing that does unite them is “how they view the importance of social relationships,” said Sandra Weintraub, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, who has been involved in the research since the start. “And personality-wise, they tend to be on the extroverted side.”

This doesn’t surprise Ben Rein, a neuroscientist and the author of the forthcoming book, Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection.  “People who socialize more are more resistant to cognitive decline as they get older,” Dr. Rein said. And, he added, they “have generally larger brains.”

Researchers believe that this may be because socializing can help protect against declines in brain volume that occur with age and isolation. Loneliness, which is particularly common in older adults, can increase levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and if cortisol is elevated for long periods of time, it can lead to chronic inflammation. That, in turn, could damage brain cells and even increase the risk for dementia.

By being more social in old age, super-agers may be able to avert some of the atrophy. An analysis included in the new paper supports this finding: The brain volume of super-agers tends to be more comparable to that of 50- and 60-year-olds than to their octogenarian and nonagenarian peers.

Another notable difference is that super-ager brains tend to have more of a special type of cell, called von Economo neurons, that is thought to be important for social behaviors and is only found in highly social mammals — namely apes, elephants, whales, and humans.