Aging of the brain can be compensated

The human brain can control the effects of aging

Valentina Sagina, "Your Back"

Old age impairs memory and slows down other physical and cognitive skills, however, a new study has shown that the brain has significant potential to reduce these effects.

"In order to process the information we receive every day, our brain divides it into categories. The study showed that this categorization process changes with age. In older people, the brain cannot quickly switch from one category to another," said study author Sabrina Schenk, a neuroscientist at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany (in a press release How our brain slows down the effects of aging - VM).

Researchers have found that the brain in older people can compensate for this effect by paying more attention to details than at a younger age. Young people pay attention to many things and collect information from various sources, while older people focus their attention on one thing.

"Thus, the brain is able to slow down the negative effects of aging to some extent by increasing the level of mindfulness," Schenk added.

During the study, participants had to sort circles with different color combinations into one of two categories. Some of the circles were very similar to each other, while other circles were completely different. The researchers also assessed the participants' brainwaves using an electroencephalogram (EEG) and used a tracker to track eye movement.

The results of the study showed that young and elderly participants had no difficulty categorizing such circles. However, in the later stages of the experiment, when it was necessary to sort completely different circles, the differences between the groups became obvious. Older participants faced greater difficulties during the classification of these circles than their younger counterparts. Brainwave assessments have also shown that older people develop special selective mindfulness. In other words, they pay more attention to details than young people. This was also confirmed by the eye tracker recordings.

The study was published in the journal Neuropsychologia (Schenk et al., Out of sight, out of mind: Categorization learning and normal aging – VM).

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  16.09.2016