As I understand the research the "struggle" is more cultural than inherent/biological.
It just so happens that a good chunk of people tend to stop learning and pushing themselves for what ever reason. But if you keep at it, or get back to it, your brain adapts over time and becomes more flexible to to speak.
And by "learning" they mean things that are just slightly outside of your comfort zone.
Anecdotally, people who do that for a very long time, tend to be really smart and interesting I found. It's such a wonderful thing.
Learning is hard - you are pushing the plasticity of your brain. It is like cutting grooves into your brain - but fortunately the experience of insight when you understand new things is quite pleasurable. I think it may take more “conscious intentionality” to choose that discomfort as one ages but it is surely worth it for a life of pleasure. I won’t say learning go channels and go routines was as big a sunflower burst as call back event based programming in C was as a young man, but it was unmistakably cool. Even learning the thought behind all the god-forsaken Java patterns or the dumb borrow checking for Rust make me a larger thinker and better reader and listener to technical ideas.
A life of constant curiosity and willingness to tolerate the pains of learning is a lifetime of childlike awe and playfulness.
It just so happens that a good chunk of people tend to stop learning and pushing themselves for what ever reason. But if you keep at it, or get back to it, your brain adapts over time and becomes more flexible to to speak.
And by "learning" they mean things that are just slightly outside of your comfort zone.
Anecdotally, people who do that for a very long time, tend to be really smart and interesting I found. It's such a wonderful thing.