Effects of Aging on Cognitive Development

The impact of aging said to have a great effect on the capacity of learning of the adult. (Falasca, 2011). There are several eye problems become common as they age, cognitive ability, hearing impairments and perception may not be sufficient enough to understand and grasp all the information or it could be compromised (Falasca,

Once you reach a certain point in your life how do you just forgot? Is there a certain point in your life where your memory is affected? The common question going around is does your memory decline with age. One reason this is important because it will affect all of us. We will all get old and this can greatly affect our health. The research can show how our older age will affect our memory.

The prefrontal cortex, which is the anterior part of the frontal lobes, controls understanding consequences, impulse control, abstract thinking, long range planning, and mental flexibility (Ortiz 93-94). Researchers at UCLA, Harvard Medical School, and the National Institute of Health have been working together to understand brain development. Their research has shown that at a young age the brain overproduces gray matter, which is the overall thinking part of the brain. After this comes the pruning process in which gray matter is removed. Paul Thompson from UCLA describes this time as a "massive loss of brain tissue" (as quoted in Ortiz 94). The average amount of tissue lost per year is one to two percent (Ortiz 94). While this pruning process is taking place the myelination is occurring simultaneously. Myelination is when white matter, what insulates the brain, makes brain process more efficient. This process is also thought to shape brains neural connections for adulthood (Ortiz 95). With age, the brain becomes denser and more organized which makes it better at processing and understanding information. Changes in the brain also can happen late into the twenty's (Beckman 3). A member of the UCLA research team reported that "[The] frontal lobe undergoes the most change during adolescence-by far. It is also the last part of the brain development" (as quoted in Ortiz 94). For most, full brain development is reached during the ages

As we age, our brain and nervous system go through natural changes. An aging adult may experience memory loss, decreased touch sensation, change in the perception of pain, change in sleep pattern, decreased coordination and increased risk for infection (Ignatavicius, 2013, p. 912) .

Finally, adulthood consists of early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. Early adulthood is a stage where individuals are physically in their best condition. Memory and thinking abilities are sharp, life decisions are made, and they take on roles of independence. Middle adulthood is when individuals start to reflect on their lives as a whole. Retirement planning and sadness over unaccomplished goals began to surface, during this particular stage. Some physical changes such as hearing and vision start to take place. Focusing more on health, relationships and becoming tolerable with death are all signs of late adulthood development. The immune system, vision, hearing, and muscle strength start to decline. Loss of memory is a cognitive trait that is related

There are people who think that older adults are not capable of learning new information because of the number of neurons in their brain decline as they age. In the PBS video “Stealing Time”, the old cage potato rats were given a change of scene with an enriched environment and the results were that their dendrites grew and made new synaptic connections where there were none before. These rats were better on future tasks than the old rats that were not given a change of scene. When older adults are doing a task in a laboratory setting they are less efficient at processing the information presented to them and their reaction time is slower. “Older adults show more brain activity between the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe than

A decline in cognitive functioning occurs during the middle and late adult years. The ensuing decades indicates that there is a general pattern of change in cognitive function across the late adult years, with consistent declines in perceptual motor skills, concept formation, complex memory tasks, ability to deal with novel tasks that are complex, and tasks that require quick decisions.

Someone's cognition, ability to assess risk, and think logically will continue to improve as you age. And despite the fact that brain development may be done by our 30s, it doesn’t mean that someone with a fully developed brain cannot change it. There is considerable evidence to suggest that we can still change our own brains with a process called “neuroplasticity.” Our brains are constantly adapting to our environment, experiences, and other inputs to which it is exposed (Mental Health Daily, 2016).In other to promote healthy brain development, it would be ideal to take advantage of the age of puberty( between 18 and 25) the period when the brain is not fully developed. Engaging in healthy behaviors and giving the brain optimal stimulation will help ensure healthy prefrontal cortex development. Some of the ways we can give the brain optimal stimulation are cognitive challenges (examples of things that may boost brain function include: brain training games and applications

Many studies have been broad, studying the vocabulary, reasoning, memory, and speed of the person, but zoning in on one thing specific may lead to further understanding. Studying the effects of cognitive aging in relation to memory possibly will open so many more areas of study. Studying specific age groups could also be helpful when attempting to understand cognitive aging as a whole. Learning about how speed, memory, vocabulary, and reasoning all work within a child, 10-15 years old, might be helpful when comparing that data to that information of an adult. between 50-60 years

There have been a number of studies that have used both cross-sectional and longitudinal methods. In two cross-sectional analyses of 77 (mean age = 50.5, S.D. = 16.7) and then 127 participants (mean age = 45.9, S.D. = 15.5), Salthouse and colleagues (1996) found that the relationship between sensory functioning (near visual acuity) and cognition (working memory, associative learning, and concept identification) increased with age. With a similar cross-sectional approach, Baltes and colleagues (1997) analyzed data from two large age groups: a younger adult sample (25-69 years, n = 171, mean age = 48.2, SD = 14.7) and an older adult sample (70 – 103 years, n = 516, mean age = 84.9, SD = 8.66).

As people age the reaction time significantly deteriorates causing slower stimulus responses. Seen in figure 1, the values displayed a direct relationship, which showed reaction time worsened with age. This may be due to the “white” matter also known as the myelin sheath is slowly dispersing, this then may lead to slower brain power. The myelin sheath which creates faster brain access for neurons, gradually exacerbates with age because between the age brackets of 0-30 the brain is at full arousal but after the age of 30 the brain starts to slowly degrade, causing lose of power and speed to respond quickly. This clearly showed that reaction is heavy associated with age. Another trend seen in the graph is that between the age of 30 and under

      Attention becomes more sustained and selective with age; children become better at focusing on just those aspects of a situation that are relevant to their goals. Older children are also better at adapting attention to task requirements. Gains in cognitive inhibition,

As age increases, we can expect some loss of heart, lung, joint, and sexual functioning. Some loss of brain cells and mental efficiency is a normal part of

Cognition refers to the process in which people are able to acquire and comprehend various forms of knowledge through their thoughts, experiences and use of their sensory systems. This process of cognition is in itself takes various processes. It must be said as early as now that the ultimate result of cognition processes is to result in one learning. The cognitive processes are started by one having to pay attention. This

It is clear to neurobiologists that aging results in a decrease in brain size as well as a decrease in the efficiency of brain functions. It has been a widely held belief that aging causes neurons to die and for the overall number of neurons to decrease as one reaches old age. Studies