Neurologists pour cold water on GOP attacks on Biden's memory

Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have spilled a lot of ink attacking President Joe Biden for purported memory lapses, but neurologists are reportedly saying not so fast.

Special Counsel Hur's report on Biden's classified document handling included a line about how the president is a well-meaning but forgetful man, and the conversation since that time has drifted toward whether that means he can't be president.

But according to a new report from NBC, brain experts say that "forgetting the names of acquaintances or having difficulty remembering dates from the past doesn’t affect decision-making or judgment."

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"The report on Biden’s handling of classified documents noted that the president hadn’t remembered the exact time frame that he served as vice president and was struggling to recall the period when his late son, Beau Biden, had passed away... There’s also been scrutiny of other recent events when the 81-year-old president mixed up names of foreign leaders," according to the report from Saturday. "However, neurologists say blanking on the names of acquaintances or having difficulty remembering dates from the past, especially when under stress, can simply be part of normal aging."

Dr. Paul Newhouse, clinical core leader for the Vanderbilt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, reportedly said, "If you asked me when my mother passed away, I couldn’t necessarily tell you the exact year because it was many years ago."

"Almost every older patient has trouble remembering people’s names, Newhouse said," the report states.

The article also quoted Dr. Dennis Selkoe, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who reportedly "agreed that forgetting names doesn’t actually provide much insight into potential memory problems. In fact, stress and a lack of sleep, can interfere with memory, no matter how old someone is."

“Naming proper nouns is not an adequate basis to make a conclusion about whether an individual has a more consistent and more concerning substantive progressive memory disorder,” Selkoe said, according to NBC.

Read the full report here.