Le cerveau au grand âge

• Main Author: Frédéric Balard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université Catholique de Louvain 2019-09-01
• Series: Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques
• Subjects: brain; longevity; advanced age; scientific categorizations
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rsa/3268

In the human body, the brain constitutes a particular organ that is the object of various conceptions and scientific measurements. This article proposes approaching some of these conceptions in the prism of research work on advanced age and longevity. In being based on an analysis of the literature in medicine, neuropsychology, biology and experimental psychology, the article shows that the scientific conceptions of the brain are at once marked by the period but above all by the theoretical approach and the goal of the research they find themselves involved in. In that regard, the brain is sometimes conceived of as an object of measurement of age in terms of its capacities for homeostasis, plasticity or resilience, and sometimes as a support instrument of the consciousness, the personality or a behaviour that is favourable or not to aging well. Within a biological conception, the brain appears as the organ based on which it is possible to link biological manifestations and clinical measurements of insanity. It is not a “piece” of the body like the others but the organ which reveals disease, age and even being.