Hippocampus: Aging The Brain

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.

Age-related declines are not constant across brain regions. Moreover, patterns of brain aging differs among individuals. Post mortem (PM) studies cannot help in assessment of brain tissue and its components. Moreover, PM cannot provide information on dynamic process of adult brain development, and its connection with brain structure and function. MRI helps in in-vivo measurements of the brain. It was realized that there is cortical thinning as age progresses. . Some studies of cortical thickness failed to replicate stability of the primary sensory regions (e.g., calcarine cortex) (Fjell et al., 2009; Salat et al., 2004) while others found that cortical thinning in frontal and parietal lobes exceed that of the temporal and occipital regions (Thambisetty et al., 2010). It is suggested that myelin is related to shrinkage in cerebral cortex or responsible for loss of cortical volume. MRI has helped evaluate leukoaraiosis which is a change in white matter integrity that is displayed on a T2-weighted MR image as a high signal intensity area. This area is defined as white matter hyperintensities (WMH) which depicts pathological processes such as ischemic lesions, gliosis, axonal degeneration, loss of myelin, microinfarcts, and expansion of perivascular spaces (de Leeuw et al., 2001; Pantoni, 1998). WHM is observed around the borders of the ventricles and deep in the subcortical WM regions. WHM is not present in health adults until the age of 50-55 (Hopkins et al., 2006). Further,

There is nothing more remarkable, then understanding how longevity has increased through the years. Even more so, how some are aging gracefully in a cognitive sense. Can certain measures be taken in order to delay future decline in memory to progressive dementia? Most doctors recommend aging patients to read or complete word searches in an effort to keep the mind active for as long as possible. In Mary Ziegler’s book, Adult development & aging, she stated “Good healthy habits contribute to longevity” (Ziegler, 2014, para. 1).

when asked about mental challenges of aging she said that she believes she hasn’t experienced many mental challenges yet. She fears they are to come however. She admits to having what she calls “senior moments” at times where she forgets what she was just about to say or repeats questions she has already asked her husband hours before. She has downloaded the app Luminosity on her iPad and plays the games to help with her memory and to hopefully avoid memory decline. She said she really enjoys playing some of the memory games they have. She isn’t completely convinced that it will help prevent memory decline, but she enjoys playing the games and believes it won’t do any harm.

A topic I learned more of this semester in regards to the older population was dementia. Some loss in memory function is an inevitable consequence of aging, and as one ages, it takes more time to process information and retrieve memories. However, "Dementia is a general term that refers to progressive, degenerative brain dysfunction, including deterioration in memory, concentration, language skills, visuospatial skills, and reasoning, that interferes with a person's daily functioning" (Mauk, 2014, p. 377). This loss of mental skills affects the ability to function over time, causing problems with memory and how one thinks, impacting these individual's overall quality of life.

As people get old a few of them will experience changes in cognition with age related capacity rather than intellectual capacity. There are some people who get both disparities of mentally and physically impaired that will led into depression due to aging process of their body. Even though, the forgetfulness is a common among older adults, we as healthcare providers must evaluate altered mental status of the patients. “The evaluation and management of altered mental status are broad and require careful history and physical examination to eliminate life-threatening situations”(Patti & Dulebohn, 2017). Therefore, it is very important to recognize the importance of difference between normal age-related symptoms and developing new health problems that can arise in this specific population. As elders get older their memory lapses it frustrating to them leading them to be more worried about changes in their memory. Nurses have a unique capability to promote a cognitive health and determine the possibilities of potential cases of the impairment in elders. The movie “On Golden Pond” Mr. Norman was a perfect example and showed that his symptoms were interfering with his everyday live when he almost burns down the house with fire, calling Bill by his daughter’s name Chelsea and getting lost in on the lake. Even though, Mr. Norman had heart and dementia problems his wife never discouraged him to do what he liked such as

A old person has many problems in the elderly years. For example, their physical effects go down because they lose a lot of muscle and they also lose memory. This is called alzheimer's. Alzheimer’s is a brain disease that lacks a neurotransmitter, or chemical, that allows brain messages to pass between the brain cells. That causes the neurons to die and then leads to the death of the neuritic plaques. This happens around 65 and last the rest of the person’s life. They will not understand simple things we have in life. There are many games that someone can play to help an alzheimer's person remember.

(C1.1) Preliminary results: Electrophysiological measurements in the intact abdominal ganglia and analysis of electrophysiological changes in identified neurons during aging. We recently described a ganglia preparation to carry out electrophysiological and molecular analysis of the same neurons in the abdominal ganglia. Using this methodology [31], we have carried out intracellular recordings from L7, L11 and R15 neurons (Fig 2). We then focused on aging associated changes in R15 and have analyzed membrane potentials and response to neurotransmitter Acetylcholine (Ach). We compared two different age groups, mature (6-7 months) and old (11-12 months) animals and found that aging did not alter basal properties such as membrane potential or latency and slope of burst firing whereas we observed a decrease in Ach response in old R15 neurons. To gain deeper insight into Ach induced changes in burst firing; we analyzed four parameters of action potential (AP) waveform (amplitude and duration of depolarization and repolarization). We observed specific changes in AP waveform [32]. For example, Ach induced changes in duration of depolarization and repolarization in mature R15 was absent on the old R15 (Fig 3) suggesting a decrease in response to Ach during aging [32].

There are two essential learning sections in the brain, the hippocampus and the striatum (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011). Focused learners are individuals who pay full attention in class and are not easily distracted by their mobile devices. These individuals utilize the hippocampus which is typically the heart of the memory and the learning center of the brain. These students have the ability of thinking in high level scenarios and typically end up with higher paying jobs than those that are categorized as multitaskers (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011). Multitaskers are those that do two or three things at once and are therefore not focusing on getting one task accomplished (Boyd, 2014). Such students use the area of the brain known as the striatum. This manner of learning is not an adverse learning approach; however, this area of the brain is for learning habits.

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

"I lost my keys again," my mother exclaimed at dinner a few nights ago, "I really am getting old." This use of old age as a justification for memory deficits is extremely common. Many people relate old age with loss of memory and other neurobiological functions. Why is it that aging seems to go hand in hand with losing and forgetting things? Is there a neurobiological explanation for this phenomenon?

When it comes to being an older adult many things that were once an easy task becomes challenging such as remembering where you just place something or what you are doing. These tasks have a lot to do with memory and with this it becomes a huge problem for older adults. While growing up I experienced my first older adult named francine who was sixty six years old with alzheimer’s disease. She was one of my mothers friends and I guess you could also call her my mother's mentor.

Neurogenesis is defined as the creation of new brain cells. Before studies proved that neural cells do have the capacity to proliferate and repair themselves, it was often believed that species are born with a distinct amount of neural cells and as time passes, these cells would die without the ability to be healed or replaced. It was thought that the cells were mainly formed during the embryonic and perinatal stages in the mammals (Ming and Song, 2005). The first piece of evidence that proved that neural cells can be formed throughout the life of a mammal was found by Altman. He found that there were newly formed granule cells in a postnatal rat hippocampus (Altman and Das, 1965). In humans, there are two main regions that were found to have an active amount of neurogenesis. One is the subgranular zone (SGZ) which is located in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. It is here that new dentate granule cells are generated. The other is the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles. Neurons are generated in this area and are migrated through the rostral migratory system (RMS) to the olfactory bulbs where they become interneurons (Gage, 2000). A question scientists continuously investigate is whether or not there is a decrease in an organism’s ability to regenerate and repair neural cells as they age, and if this there is a limit on their ability to regenerate these cells, are there genes or proteins that

As humans begin to get older, there is a strong association between age change and the decline of cognition. There are many causes of this decline, and it often varies highly between individuals based on their lifestyle and physical activity level (Brown AK, Liu-Ambrose T, Tate R, Lord SR, 2009). This a concern that many individuals have as they start to get older, especially with the media coverage that Alzheimer’s disease has been getting. Degenerate diseases such as Alzheimer’s can also be a major cause of cognitive decline and are common in elderly populations. Because of this risk, there are many who are looking to improve or maintain their cognitive abilities or those of a loved one, as there is an expectation that even in old age,

Advancing age is commonly associated with loss of memory. The inability to maintain both short term and long term memory is serious. Learning new things or remembering familiar words and names can be quite daunting.