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For years we've accepted that a scatty brain is as much a part of ageing as wrinkles and grey hair. But now a new book suggests we've got it all wrong, The Daily Mail reported.

According to the Secret Life Of The Grown-up Brain, by science writer Barbara Strauch, when it comes to the important stuff, our brains actually get better with age.

In fact, she argues that a raft of new studies have found that our brain hits its peak between our 40s and 60s - much later than previously thought.

Furthermore, rather than losing many brain cells as we age, we retain them, and even generate new ones well into middle age. For years it's been assumed that the brain, much like the body, declines with age.

The accepted view is that we gradually lose brain cells - up to 30 per cent of our neurons - as we get older, hence the forgetfulness, lack of focus and mental slowness we associate with senescence.

New studies show that while we can lose brain connections if they are unused, we keep most of our brain cells for as long as we live.

Researchers have found that the amount of myelin increases well into middle age, boosting our brainpower.

Scientists have also found that as we age, we start to use both sides of our brains instead of just one — a skill called bilateralisation.

Other good news is that we keep our long-term memory with age. True, as we get older our short-term memory deteriorates. The problem is not that the information has vanished, but that you have trouble retrieving it because we have so much other information stored in our brains — it’s like trying to finding the right book in a huge library.