Researchers have found that peoples' mental abilities peak at 22 before beginning to deteriorate¹ just five years later.

Professor Timothy Salthouse said the results suggested that therapies designed to prevent or reverse age-related conditions may need to start earlier, long before people become pensioners².

Almost half of over 50s 'unaware³ of leading cause of blindness'" Results converge⁴ on a conclusion that some aspects of age-related cognitive⁵ decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s," he said.

The study of 2,000 men and women lasted over seven years. The respondents, aged⁶ between 18-60, were asked to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.

Similar tests are often used to diagnose mental disabilities and declines, including dementia.

The research by the University of Virginia found that in nine out of 12 tests the average age at which the top performance was achieved was 22.

The first age at which performance was significantly lower than the peak scores was 27 – for three tests of reasoning, speed of thought and spatial⁷ visualisation. Memory was shown to decline from the average age of 37. In the other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42.

However, the report published in the academic journal Neurobiology Of Ageing, found that abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until at the age of 60.

Twenty-seven has long had negative connotations, as it is the age at which many popular musicians died, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain.

研究人员发现，人的智力在22岁时达到顶峰，而仅在五年之后就会开始衰退。

蒂莫西•索尔特豪斯教授称，研究结果表明，旨在预防或扭转与年龄有关的症状的治疗应尽早开始，而非等到退休。

在50岁以上的人中，有近一半的人“不清楚导致智力衰退的主要原因”。蒂莫西称，研究发现，对于身体健康，受过教育的成年人来说，与年龄有关的一些认知衰退症状在二三十岁时就开始了。

该研究持续七年之久，共对两千名18岁至60岁之间的男性和女性进行了调查。研究人员要求调查对象做图形猜谜，复述单词和故事细节，以及指认字母和符号类型等各项测试。

类似的测试常被用于诊断智力残疾和包括痴呆症在内的智力衰退等。

弗吉尼亚大学开展的这项研究发现，在总共12项测试中，其中有9项获得最高分的调查对象平均年龄是22岁。

从逻辑推理、反应速度和空间想象力三项测试的结果来看，调查对象的得分首次明显低于之前的最高水平是在27岁。记忆力开始衰退的平均年龄是37岁。在其它几项测试中，调查对象的得分在42岁时开始降低。

但发表于《衰老神经生物学》学术期刊上的这项研究报告表明，从词汇或常识测试的结果看，基于知识积累的能力到了60岁会开始增长。

27岁一直是个不太吉利的年龄，很多流行歌手在27岁时去世，其中包括吉米•亨德里克斯、吉姆•莫里森、布赖恩•琼斯、贾尼斯•乔普林和柯特•科本。