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Senior Citizens Slow Cognitive Decline by Learning
New Things
Feb. 16, 2006 – If you think you are too old to
learn new skills - by golly, think again. New research at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that training re-ignites key areas
of the brain, offsetting some age-related declines and boosting
performance.
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By Tucker Sutherland, editor
Feb. 6, 2006 – Okay, fellow senior citizens, if you
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front – "Activity in the medial frontal and parietal regions stays
turned on while activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
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Dec. 5, 2005 - Completing a daily crossword and
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Senior Citizens Are Not Rude, Just Have Uninhibited,
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Sept. 9, 2005 – If you are a senior citizen and
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The findings, involving functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI), provide the first visible evidence for a
relationship between behavioral performance and cortical processors
involved in dual-task processing, said Arthur F. Kramer, a professor of
psychology and researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science
and Technology.
The study -- published online this month in advance
of regular publication by the journal Neurobiology of Aging -- also adds
to other emerging data that refute the idea that opposite brain areas
become activated to help aging people compensate for a loss of
cognition. Older studies, Kramer said, did not look at the impacts of
training.
For the new study, researchers in Kramer's lab
looked at areas of the brain known to be associated with executive
control -- scheduling, planning, juggling multiple tasks and working
memory. These areas, the ventral and dorsal prefrontal cortexes, are
tied to cognitive declines in aging.
Participants were 32 men and women, ages 55 to 80,
and 31 younger adults. They were divided into control and experimental
groups, with the latter receiving training on a time-measured task of
identifying green or yellow Xs and/or whether a letter on the computer
monitor was a B or C. Researchers then analyzed comprehensive fMRI data
compiled before and after training of various parts of the brain and of
changes in performance and times involving the tasks.
Before and after results were dramatic in ventral
regions of the brain, said lead author Kirk I. Erickson, a psychology
postdoctoral research associate.
"You can see," Erickson said as he pointed to
graphs showing results of activity in the left ventral region, "that
even though the older adults start out with a lower amount of activation
before training, those who were trained actually increased the amount of
activity. You see a convergence with the young people. After training
there are less age-related differences. Older adults begin to look more
like the younger adults in brain activation."
Activation in this lower brain region jumped
significantly among the older adults who received the training, while
the older participants who did not get training experienced a dip in
activation while doing the tasks. Younger trained participants started
the tasks with higher activation but showed a slight reduction after
training.
In the right hemisphere of this region, the young
started out with higher activation levels than the old, and both groups
showed sharp declines after training.
"Both old and young react pretty much the same way,
even though they started differently," Erickson said. "Their brains do
pretty much the same things with training."
Previous studies have repeatedly found that older
adults show greater activation in both hemispheres, Kramer said. "The
question is: Is that good or bad? Is there compensation occurring in one
side of the brain? What we are seeing here is that the better you get at
a task through training, one hemisphere goes up and one goes down. Older
studies did not figure in the influence of training."
In the left dorsal prefrontal cortex, the results
were similar to those in the left ventral region, with a convergence of
brain activity after training. However, pre-training levels were much
higher among older participants, but activation dropped -- at about the
same level that activation rose for the younger trained participants.
Next door, in the right dorsal region, activation
levels were nearly identical for both young and old before and after
training.
"The results in the upper regions of the brain are
a little more difficult to interpret, because the results are going in
opposite directions for young and old adults," Kramer said. What may be
happening, he said, relates to stress levels older people may experience
while in competition with younger people.
"Older people are anxious and may be overcautious,
but as they become more proficient they gain confidence," Kramer said.
"Young people tend to be more lackadaisical, and they may be realizing
that they need these brain areas for the task."
Thus, Kramer and Erickson said, differences in life
experiences of the young and old could be at play, with the changes in
brain activity reflecting adjustments to an optimal point for both age
groups.
"Or we could be seeing that these two dorsal brain
areas aren't necessarily beneficial for this particular task," Erickson
said, adding that different tasks may affect different areas of the
brain.
Overall, Kramer said, the findings say there is a
strong relationship between brain activation and performance. The
pattern shown in this study, he said, appears to have held in a
subsequent unpublished study in which older individuals were able to
transfer their training in one task for use with a new challenge.
Co-authors of the paper are Stanley J. Colcombe,
Ruchika Wadhwa, Paige E. Scalf, Jennifery S. Kim and Maritza Alvarado,
all affiliated with the U. of I. psychology department and the Beckman
Institute; Louis Bherer of the University of Quebec at Montreal; and
Matthew S. Peterson of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
The National Institute on Aging funded the
research.
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