St. Louis ? Stop daydreaming and read this story.

It could hold off Alzheimer’s disease from vulnerable areas of your brain – for a few more minutes.

A new Washington University study shows that the part of your brain used to daydream is the first to be attacked by Alzheimer’s.

A team of scientists from Washington University and the University of Pittsburgh used five imaging techniques to map the brains of 746 people. The researchers found that parts of the brain involved in daydreaming, musing and reliving memories in young people were the first places where neuron-damaging plaques are deposited in people on the brink of dementia.

The data could mean that thought wears down more active regions of the brain, leaving them vulnerable to attack from Alzheimer’s.

The finding appears in today’s addition of the Journal of Neuroscience.