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Aging
brains allow negative memories to fade
It
turns out there's a scientific reason why
older people tend to see the past through
rose-colored glasses.
A University of Alberta medical researcher,
in collaboration with colleagues at Duke
University, identified brain activity that
causes older adults to remember fewer
negative events than their younger
counterparts.
"Seniors actually use their brain
differently than younger people when it
comes to storing memory, especially if that
memory is a negative one," said study author
Dr. Florin Dolcos, an assistant professor of
psychiatry and neuroscience in the Faculty
of Medicine & Dentistry.
The study, published online in December in
the U.S.-based journal Psychological
Science, found age-related changes in brain
activity when participants with an average
age of 70 where shown standardized images
that depicted either neutral or strongly
negative events.
The research team asked older and younger
participants to rate the emotional content
of these pictures along a pleasantness
scale, while their brain activity was
monitored with a functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, a
high-tech device that uses a large magnet to
take pictures inside the brain.
Thirty minutes later, participants were
unexpectedly asked to recall these images.
The older participants remembered fewer
negative images than the younger
participants.
Brain scans showed that although both groups
had similar activity levels in the emotional
centres of the brain, they differed when it
came to how these centres interacted with
the rest of the brain.
The older participants had reduced
interactions between the amygdala, a brain
region that detects emotions, and the
hippocampus, a brain region involved in
learning and memory, when shown negative
images.
Scans also showed that older participants
had increased interactions between the
amygdala and the dorsolateral frontal
cortex, a brain region involved in higher
thinking processes, like controlling
emotions.
The older participants were using thinking
rather than feeling processes to store these
emotional memories.
Dr. Dolcos conducted the study in
collaboration with senior researcher Dr.
Roberto Cabeza and graduate student Ms.
Peggy St. Jacques, both of Duke University.
In another article published earlier this
year in the journal Neurobiology of Aging,
the team reported that healthy seniors are
able to regulate emotion better than younger
people, so they are less affected by
upsetting events. They also conducted
further research to look at the relationship
between emotion, memory and aging.
"Seniors' brains actually work differently
than younger individuals – they have somehow
trained their brain so that they're less
affected both during and after an upsetting
event," said Dolcos, a member of the Alberta
Cognitive Neuroscience Group, a University
of Alberta research team that explores how
the brain works in human thought, including
issues like perception, memory and emotion.
This research may improve understanding of
mental health issues like depression and
anxiety, where patients have trouble coping
with emotionally challenging situations, and
suffer from intrusive recollection of
upsetting memories.
These findings may also help to enhance
memory in older adults with memory deficits,
and assist with research related to
dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, in
which patients have difficulty with
remembering personal events.
###
Florin Dolcos received funding for the study
through a postdoctoral fellowship from the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada, an award from the
Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation,
and a Young Investigator Award from the
U.S.-based National Alliance for Research on
Schizophrenia and Depression. Roberto Cabeza
received his funding from the U.S. National
Institutes of Health.
For more information on Dr. Dolcos's
research, visit:
http://www.dolcoslab.med.ualberta.ca/.
For more information on the Cabeza Lab at
Duke University, visit:
http://www.cabezalab.org/.
The Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the
University of Alberta is a leader in
educating and training exceptional
practitioners and researchers in the highest
international standards.
Our goal is to optimize health and wellness.
We do this by providing an environment that
nurtures continuous learning, scholarship,
excellence and respect.
We are home to 21 departments, 10 divisions,
and many centres and institutes. For more
information, please visit
www.med.ualberta.ca
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