… by tranquilising the aging brain.

“It is counterintuitive to say that in order to make Grandpa faster, slow down his brain. Nobody was really thinking about giving tranquillisers to an 85-year-old to perk him up – which is the implication of the study,” he says. But he cautions that the team has done no research in humans and that people should not start taking the drugs themselves.

Peter Tyrer, a community psychiatrist at Imperial College London, thinks the findings are “very interesting and novel”. He adds that doctors have sometimes observed a paradoxical effect of benzodiazepine drugs in which rather than calming down, people had become more alert and aggressive. “It is counterintuitive to say that in order to make Grandpa faster, slow down his brain. Nobody was really thinking about giving tranquillisers to an 85-year-old to perk him up – which is the implication of the study,” he says. But he cautions that the team has done no research in humans and that people should not start taking the drugs themselves.

Peter Tyrer, a community psychiatrist at Imperial College London, thinks the findings are “very interesting and novel”. He adds that doctors have sometimes observed a paradoxical effect of benzodiazepine drugs in which rather than calming down, people had become more alert and aggressive. New Scientist