RE: --S-A-- Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

Since the page is abt BRAIN, cud someone like me know why some older

folk 's brain shrink and what will be the outcome. Is there any cure to

it and / or slow down the shrinking. (That's my mother in law, abt 78

yrs old)

 

Thank you in advance ( acyk)

 

Andy Chong

 

 

 

On Behalf Of Desert Sky

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11:27 PM

;

;

 

<< --S-A-- >> Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

 

 

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

Yarek Waszul

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/health/research/20brai.html?em & ex=1211

428800 & en=c4ac9065a0b095ec & ei=5087%0A

 

 

By SARA REISTAD-LONG

Published: May 20, 2008

 

When older people can no longer remember names at a

cocktail party, they tend to think that their

brainpower is declining. But a growing number of

studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.

RSS Feed

Get Health News From The New York Times >

 

Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply

taking in more data and trying to sift through a

clutter of information, often to its long-term

benefit.

 

The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a

neurology book, " Progress in Brain Research. "

 

Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer's

disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans

65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors

say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus

of attention that makes it more difficult to latch

onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number.

Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.

 

" It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad

thing, " said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology

researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the

book. " It may increase the amount of information

available to the conscious mind. "

 

For example, in studies where subjects are asked to

read passages that are interrupted with unexpected

words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more

slowly than college students. Although the students

plow through the texts at a consistent speed

regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older

people slow down even more when the words are related

to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not

just stumbling over the extra information, but are

taking it in and processing it.

 

When both groups were later asked questions for which

the out-of-place words might be answers, the older

adults responded much better than the students.

 

" For the young people, it's as if the distraction

never happened, " said an author of the review, Lynn

Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of

Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research

Institute. " But for older adults, because they've

retained all this extra data, they're now suddenly the

better problem solvers. They can transfer the

information they've soaked up from one situation to

another. "

 

Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real

world, where it is not always clear what information

is important, or will become important. A seemingly

irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on

new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra

details that stole your attention, like others'

yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the

speaker's real impact.

 

" A broad attention span may enable older adults to

ultimately know more about a situation and the

indirect message of what's going on than their younger

peers, " Dr. Hasher said. " We believe that this

characteristic may play a significant role in why we

think of older people as wiser. "

 

In a 2003 study at Harvard, Dr. Carson and other

researchers tested students' ability to tune out

irrelevant information when exposed to a barrage of

stimuli. The more creative the students were thought

to be, determined by a questionnaire on past

achievements, the more trouble they had ignoring the

unwanted data. A reduced ability to filter and set

priorities, the scientists concluded, could contribute

to original thinking.

 

This phenomenon, Dr. Carson said, is often linked to a

decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. Studies

have found that people who suffered an injury or

disease that lowered activity in that region became

more interested in creative pursuits.

 

Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology and research

professor at the Institute for Social Research at the

University of Michigan, who was not involved in the

current research, said there was a word for what

results when the mind is able to assimilate data and

put it in its proper place - wisdom.

 

" These findings are all very consistent with the

context we're building for what wisdom is, " she said.

" If older people are taking in more information from a

situation, and they're then able to combine it with

their comparatively greater store of general

knowledge, they're going to have a nice advantage. "

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

SEARCHING-ALTERNATIVES RECOMMENDS:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~---Allieving Suffering For All With Acne---~~

http://www.acnehealingoil.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~