HAVING a bighead may protect you against cognitive decline in old age. Christopher Martyn and his team at the University of Southampton, UK, measured the head circumference of 215 people aged 66 to 75, and also tested their memory and IQ over 3 years. People with smaller heads were up to five times as likely to have suffered decline, they found.
A person’s head size at birth did not seem to have much effect. Martyn’s team suspects that what matters most is growth in the first few years of life. By age 6, the brain is typically 93 per cent of its final volume (Brain, vol…
