Brain Resilience: Understanding the Role of Brain, Cognitive, Motor, and Affective Reserves

Brain resilience is a broad term encompassing concepts that seek to explain the brain’s capacity to maintain cognition and effective functioning despite aging, neurological disease, or other forms of adversity. Among the earliest and most influential concepts within this framework are brain reserve and cognitive reserve. Together, these constructs have been used to help explain why the degree of brain pathology does not always correspond directly to the severity of its clinical manifestations.Over recent decades, research on brain and cognitive reserve has advanced our understanding of inter-individual differences in cognitive functioning and lifelong cognitive trajectories. Nevertheless, the field continues to evolve. Important theoretical questions remain regarding the relationships among reserve, resilience, compensation, and maintenance, as well as the biological and behavioral mechanisms underlying these processes. Further work is also needed to identify valid and reliable indicators through which different forms of reserve can be measured.The reserve framework has increasingly expanded beyond cognition. Emerging perspectives have considered how emotional, motivational, behavioral and physical characteristics may contribute to differences in adaptation to stress, illness, and age-related change. In the affective and motivational domains, researchers have examined whether emotional flexibility, the maintenance of psychological stability, and the ability to sustain goal-directed behavior may provide additional resources supporting resilience.Motor reserve has similarly been proposed as a framework for understanding individual differences in the preservation of motor functioning. It may involve neural, cerebellar, musculoskeletal, and behavioral processes shaped in part by physical activity and motor experiences across the lifespan. Such processes may help explain why some individuals maintain comparatively effective motor functioning despite neurological pathology. The potential influence of motor reserve may also extend beyond the motor domain and contribute to cognitive functioning, independence, and quality of life.Further research is needed both to clarify the theoretical status and neurobiological mechanisms of these different forms of reserve and mechanisms and to determine whether they represent distinct, overlapping, or complementary processes. Integrating these perspectives may contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that support functioning and adaptation across the lifespan.This Research Topic aims to examine the specific and potentially complementary roles of brain, cognitive, motor, behavioral, motivational, and affective forms of reserve and resilience in healthy aging and neurological disease. We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:1. Theoretical clarification of different forms of reserve, resilience, compensation, and maintenance, including proposals for new or integrative conceptual models.2. Protective and risk factors across the lifespan that are not commonly represented among traditional cognitive-reserve indicators, including nutritional, emotional, motivational, social, behavioral, and other psychoaffective factors.3. The mechanisms through which these factors may influence brain functioning, cognitive efficiency, psychological adaptation, and clinical outcomes.4. Longitudinal research examining the influence of different forms of reserve on cognitive, emotional, motor, or everyday functioning across the lifespan in healthy and clinical populations.5. Intervention studies designed to strengthen reserve or resilience for preventive, rehabilitative, or therapeutic purposes.6. Methodological research addressing the operationalization, measurement, and differentiation of emerging reserve constructs.Types of manuscripts of interest include Brief Research Report, Case Report, Clinical Trial, Conceptual Analysis, Hypothesis and Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Original Research, and Systematic Review. Topic editors: Giulia Fusi, Barbara Colombo Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83935/brain-resilience-understanding-the-role-of-brain-cognitive-motor-and-affective-reserves