Brain health has been highlighted in many recent conversations. Many studies have highlighted things like what food affects our brains negatively. Whether it is how our activities or lack thereof could change our brain function as well as how different psychological factors like stress and anxiety can hurt our brain. However, have you wondered what things positively affect your brain health and age? A new study found that the natural curiosity that we have could be the answer to healthy brain aging. As kids, all of us had our curiosity, the urge to find new things and learn interesting facts. People become less curious as they age, or that’s what most of us believe. However, the researchers pointed out that we don’t lose our curiosity, rather we focus on one aspect of interest and expand on that. Staying Curious Helps Your Brain Stay Healthy The study published in the journal PLOS One 2025, found that some types of curiosity become even stronger as we age. Older people who keep wanting to learn new things might have a better chance of avoiding or delaying problems like Alzheimer's disease. The study looked at curiosity in two different ways. One type is called "trait curiosity." This is like a basic part of someone's personality that makes them want to find out new things in general. The study found that this type of curiosity tends to become less strong as people get older. The other type is "state curiosity." This is when you feel curious about something specific at a certain moment, like wanting to know the answer to a question someone asks you. This type of curiosity behaves differently as we age. You Become More Curious As You Age What the researchers found interesting was that "state curiosity" often starts to increase quite a bit after people reach middle age. This feeling of wanting to know about specific things keeps getting stronger as people move into old age. In the UCLA news release the lead scientist of the study, Alan Castel from UCLA, said that this fits with his idea that older people don't stop wanting to learn, they just become more careful about what they choose to learn about. He gave examples of older people who go back to school, start new hobbies, or enjoy activities like watching birds. He believes that if older adults can keep this specific kind of curiosity alive, it can really help them stay mentally sharp as they age. This suggests that focusing on learning about things that interest you might be a key to keeping your brain active and healthy in your later years. Why Does ‘Specific Curiosity’ Rise Later In Life? To understand this better, the researchers asked over 1,400 people in the age group of 20 and 84, to take a test online that measured their curiosity. Part of the test involved guessing the answers to difficult trivia questions. After guessing, the participants were asked if they wanted to know the correct answer. The results showed that people who had more general curiosity also tended to have more specific curiosity, and the other way around. However, they also found that while general curiosity tended to decrease as people aged, specific curiosity decreased in early adulthood but then started to increase significantly after middle age and continued to rise in older age. The researchers think this happens because younger adults are often very focused on learning what they need for their jobs, school, and raising families. This can make them curious early on, but it can also be stressful. As people get older, and perhaps after their children have grown up and they have retired, they have more time and energy to focus on things they personally enjoy learning about. This could be why their curiosity about specific topics becomes stronger in later life. This suggests that actively keeping your curiosity alive as you age could be an important way to help keep your brain healthy and maintain a good quality of life.