Being socially active, especially later in life, brings many mental and physical health benefits. Not least of these is the fact that social interaction in a group can protect against cognitive decline, as a new study reveals.

The idea that having a rich social life can help to protect an individual's health is by no means a new one.

Neither is the notion that older people who stay closely in touch with friends preserve better memory and other cognitive abilities for a longer time than their more solitary peers.

The question has always been, "Does sociability protect cognitive abilities, or do those who live with memory impairment tend to shun social activities?"

Researchers from Ohio State University in Columbus have decided to try to clarify this issue. To do so, they worked with a mouse model, but they did not take the same approach as previous studies working with rodents.

In existing research working with mouse models, the investigators gave some of the animals plenty of opportunities to interact with their environment and to explore, while others were given fewer such opportunities.

Instead, study leader Elizabeth Kirby and her colleagues worked with aging mice housed either in groups or as couples, but all of them had equal opportunities to learn and explore.

These strategies, the team explains, allowed them to ascertain which differences in memory recall and learning can be attributed to social connectivity.

"Our research," Kirby explains, "suggests that merely having a larger social network can positively influence the aging brain." The team's results have now been published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.