We’ve noticed a recurring theme in recent brain health scientific studies called “speed of processing”. Adults with faster information processing capability seem less susceptible to various forms of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease. We’ve previously discussed some of these studies; most were focused on selected groups of individuals such as older adults. Further, those studies typically concentrated on brain parts known to play a critical role in memory formation and fast response, usually the fornix and the hippocampus, parts of the limbic system. Does White Matter Matter? Researchers at Tohoku University in Sendai Japan have taken a different approach with their analysis. They performed a large study of healthy young adults to understand if the overall amount of white matter in the brain was associated with faster processing speed. White matter is bundles of axons which connect various gray matter areas to each other and to the spinal cord. In our “ Veg...