The Role Of Aging In Long-Term Memory

1. Memory loss that disrupts daily life like forgetting names or appointments but remembering them later

· Learning new information, remembering things you have just seen or heard. This is proof that Alzheimer’s affects the short-term memory. Eventually the information which has been in the long-term memory will fade as well.

The brain ages just as our body ages; its ability to function and physical appearance change over time. Physical changes to the brain often include shrinking and death of neurons, decrease in neurotransmitter synthesis and signaling, and decrease in cortical thickness. The hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, and thalamus experience the most significant variances in the aging brain. These three regions can account for up 25-100% of the cognitive variance seen when comparing aged and younger individuals. Additionally, the brain can have losses of up to 50% of myelinated

Forgetting happens at any age and with any gender, but when it comes to older adults they start panicking because of getting dementia. Dementia is a chronic disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease (Alzheimer

The author of this article hypothesized that, as individuals grow older memory retention declines, however, not all characteristics of memory are weakened. This article is made up of three sections; Review of Empirical Findings, Aging and Memory: Theoretical Perspectives, and Aging and Memory: Neuropsychological Underpinnings. The first section will inform the reader by using examples that were used to study different parts of memory and conclusions that the researchers have agreed

Memory is the system that enables us to learn skills and gain information through sensory memory and short-term storage. It is also the process that allows us to retrieve this information from long-term storage (Baddeley, 1974). Being able to create a new memory, put that memory away in storage, and bring it back when

The key to intentional forgetting is what happens when memories are retrieved. The importance of retrieval has been demonstrated in studies that compare recall and recognition memory tasks. Success on either kind of task requires that items be encoded and stored. Whereas recall tasks require active search and retrieval of a memory, recognition tests present the studied item as a direct cue to memory. That item needs only to be checked against whatever representation is stored. Because the directed forgetting eVect is strong on recall tasks but weak or absent on recognition tasks, theorists have concluded that retrieval inhibition, rather than unlearning, is key to intentional forgetting (Bjork, 1989; Geiselman, Bjork, & Fishman, 1983; but see

There are various advantages and disadvantages of different study designs when investigating cognitive and neural ageing using neuroimaging. Several theories of cognitive ageing have been based on cross-sectional designs where there is a common understanding that multifarious age studies can lead to a better understanding of the propinquity among age-related processes (Hofer, Sliwinski and Flaherty, 2002). This method is proven to be cost effective, renders quick results, and is the best way to determine prevalence and identifying associations within a group (Mann, 2003). However, Salthouse (2009) pointed out that comparisons of people of different ages at a particular time does not necessarily express changes that will arise within an individual as he ages. He explained that confounding factors, such as maturation, which refers to the person growing older and undergoing different experiences and influences, must be determined in each participant to know how each one has been effected. Raz and Kennedy (2009) also identified in a review that cross-sectional studies have often only focused on specific parts of the brain in imaging studies, such as the prefrontal cortex, but many longitudinal studies present larger age-related structural changes in the inferior parietal cortex, the hippocampus, and the cerebellum.

“When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra” (Will Rogers). Not every single person on this earth will be able to remember algebra seeing that there is a chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease, but that is highly unlikely. “Odds are you're not suddenly developing Alzheimer's disease, although many people jump to that conclusion” (Mohs) The problem being solved is seeing if short-term memory is affected by age. Studies show that people take longer to process information as they grow older. But the question in this experiment is "Does age affect short-term memory." This is not to find out the processing time of the brain. The point is to find out if someone from ages 35 to 45 can store a set of ten numbers in

As stated by Luszcz and Bryant, “As this work proceeds it will be important to insure that the assumption central to any theory of cognitive ageing, namely that there is a substantive difference between age and the factor or factors that mediate between age and cognition, be demonstrated” (Luszcz, Bryant, 1999). Each hypotheses had its own valid points, which is what keeps the research going. Hopefully in the future there will be a theory to explain why the memory changes as a person

Depression, Delirium and age-related memory impairment may be mistaken for Dementia because a lot of signs and symptoms of each condition can be mistaken for Dementia. Some examples of the signs and symptoms of each condition can be;

‘Normal’ cognitive aging is the process of the brain aging (Kortebein, 2013, p. 8). This involves the central nervous system aging in the absence of psychiatric diseases, neurodegenerative diseases or related pathology (Kortebein, 2013, p. 8). There is no known or exact cause to explain why the brain ages (Kortebein, 2013, p. 8). But, there are cognitive changes, which occur as individual’s age (Harada, Natelson-Love & Triebel, 2013, p. 1). There are many myths in society that suggest as individual’s age they lose all of their cognitive abilities, but this is not the case (Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centre, n.d., p. 1). While some areas show normal signs of

Amnesia is very rare but can be factored into memory loss in many different ways. This Article on Amnesia states, “Some types of stroke, concussive injury, chronic alcoholism, disruption of oxygen supply, or certain kinds of

In Craik’s experiment, he had three groups of people. They are the older adult group, younger adult with full attention group, and younger adult with divided attention group. Then, he gave the three groups a word recognition test. The result shows that elders have a significant memory loss compared to younger adults.(Castel and Craik). Craik also studied the brain structure of older adult. He found that the frontal activity, which is related to movement and long-term memories, is inefficient. As people grow older, there will be less nerve cells in the front region of the brain. The connections of nerve cells are very important to memory. This loss of nerve cells damages the connections. On the other hand, the activity of prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for memory, decision making and cognitive behavior is improved. His study explains why elders take more time to learn new informations or skill. However, once they obtain a new skill, they can use it more efficiently than younger adults because of the improvement of prefrontal

"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?