Aging brains allow negative memories to fade

December 17, 2008

It turns out there's a scientific reason why older people tend to see the past through rose-coloured 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.

University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry

---

---

	Introduction to Biological Aging Theory by Azinet Press Why do we age? The answer to this question is critical to our ability to prevent and treat highly age-related diseases such as cancer and heart disease that now cause the deaths of most people in the developed world. This short book provides an overview of biological aging theories including history, current status, major scientific controversies, and implications for the future of medicine. Major topics include: human mortality as a function of age, aging mechanisms and processes, the programmed vs. non-programmed aging controversy, empirical evidence on aging, and the feasibility of anti-aging and regenerative medicine. Evolution theory is essential to aging theories. Theorists have been struggling for 150 years to explain how aging, deterioration, and consequent...
	Aging, the Individual, and Society by Susan M. Hillier (Author), Georgia M. Barrow (Author) In the coming years, understanding senior citizens will be more important than it's ever been. Are you ready? AGING, THE INDIVIDUAL, AND SOCIETY introduces you to gerontology in a compassionate way that helps you understand them and know how to work with them. It's balanced between academic and practical discussions, and packed with study tools. That way, you'll ace the class and be ready for the future!
	Aging by Design: How New Thinking on Aging Will Change Your Life by Azinet Press Why do we age? How do we age? These questions have baffled scientists for centuries and remain unresolved. The answer to the “how” question is critical to our ability to successfully prevent and treat age-related diseases like cancer and heart disease that now cause the majority of all deaths in the developed world. Because of major difficulties in directly experimentally determining causes of aging, the answer to the “why” question is critical to guiding research efforts directed toward identifying and altering processes involved in age-related diseases. Evolution theory plays a critical role in the “why” issue because it attempts to explain why each living organism has its particular design and therefore why different species display different aging characteristics and...
	Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development by George E. Vaillant (Author) In a unique series of studies, Harvard University has followed 824 subjects from their teens to old age. Professor George Vaillant now uses these to illustrate the surprising factors involved in reaching happy, healthy old age.
	Aging: Concepts and Controversies by Harry R. Moody (Author) Presenting current research in an innovative format, Aging: Concepts and Controversies encourages students to become involved and take an informed stand on the major aging issues that we face as a society. Leading author and active expert in gerontology Rick Moody provides thorough explanation of the issues in the Concepts sections and current research in the Controversy sections, demonstrating the close link between concepts and controversies in the broad areas of aging: health care, socioeconomic trends, and the life course. Thoroughly revised throughout, this Sixth Edition updates developments in each sub-specialty including nine new readings, new international highlight boxes, and offers a more visually accessible two-color format.
	Aging: The Fulfillment of Life by Henri J.M. Nouwen (Author), Walter J. Gaffney (Author) The author shares his moving and inspirational  thoughts on what aging can mean to all of us. It  is a warm, caring book that shows us how to make  the later years a source of hope rather than a time  of loneliness. B & W  photographs throughout.
	Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Well-Being by Andrew Weil M.D. (Author) In each of his widely acclaimed, best-selling books, Dr. Andrew Weil has been an authoritative and companionable guide through a uniquely effective combination of traditional and nontraditional approaches to health and healthy living. Now he gives us a book about aging that is unlike any other. Drawing on the new science of biogerontology (the biology of aging) as well as on the secrets of healthy longevity — diet, activity and attitude — Dr. Weil explains that there are a myriad of things we can do to keep our bodies and minds in good working order through all phases of life. Hugely informative, practical, and uplifting, Healthy Aging is infused with the engaging candor and common sense that have made Dr. Weil our most trusted source on healthy living. With detailed...
	Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life by Roger Rosenblatt (Author) Acclaimed and beloved prize-winning essayist Roger Rosenblatt has commented on most of the trends and events of our time. His columns in Time magazine and his commentaries on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer have made him a household word and a trusted friend of millions. With a wry sense of humor and inimitable wit, Rosenblatt offers here guidelines for aging that are both easy to understand and, more importantly, easy to implement. More and more in the news today, we are hearing about phenomenal advances in the "fight against aging." But what Rosenblatt suggests to combat age is far more valuable than any scientific breakthrough-he breaks down the hardest part of aging, the mental anguish of growing older with fifty-four gems of funny, brilliant, wise, indispensable...
	Seven Strategies for Positive Aging (Norton Professional Books) by Robert D. Hill (Author) Filled with practical and effective strategies, skill-building techniques, and advice based on the most recent research on the psychology of aging, Dr. Hill demonstrates how people can help themselves age productively and positively.A practical companion to Robert Hill’s Positive Aging: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, Seven Strategies for Positive Aging presents essential tactics that encourage the development of positive aging skills. In Positive Aging, Dr. Hill challenged traditional conceptions about aging and offered a new theoretical framework for understanding the nature of aging. He argued that ...
	This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity by Susan Moon (Author) In this intimate and funny collection of essays on the sometimes confusing, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious condition of being a woman over sixty, Susan Moon keeps her sense of humor and she keeps her reader fully engaged. Among the pieces she has included  here are an essay on the gratitude she feels for her weakening bones; observations on finding herself both an orphan and a matriarch following the death of her mother; musings on her tendency to regret the past; thoughts on how not to be afraid of loneliness; appreciation for the inner tomboy; and celebratory advice on how to regard "senior moments" as opportunities to be in the here and now.