Years of Experience Creates a Wiser Brain in Older Age

Older people have been found to use their brains in a more effective way than their younger counterparts, research has found, and use just certain parts of their brains just at the exact moment when needed. Moreover, they are better at decision making than are younger people and are often not bothered by making mistakes on the way to completing tasks. These findings directly contradict earlier assumptions that our brains deteriorate with age and that older people grow increasingly unable to make sound decisions.

The new evidence form part of the conclusions from a study undertaken by Canadian researchers. They studied 24 young people aged 18 to 35 and a group of ten older people aged 55 to 75. All the participants were working people. In the study they were given a special matching task to perform, in which the rules changed as the game progressed. They would be given a heading for different sets of words and then asked to pair them up. At the same time neuroimaging scans were taken of the participants' brains and these showed that old and young brains produced different reactions when told they had made a mistake.

What happened was that younger participants showed that parts of their brains reacted in various parts while the older people demonstrated that they were not bothered by any mistakes they had made and went immediately to the next task where they made use of the same areas. The older group had benefited by all the past experience they had acquired over their lifetimes and this helped them to be more calm and efficient in completing the set tasks.

Research writer Dr Oury Monchi from the University Geriatrics Institute of Montreal said: "The older brain has experience and knows that nothing is gained by jumping the gun. It was already known that aging is not necessarily associated with a significant loss in cognitive function."

The scientist explained that as a person gets older he or she is more adept at making more efficient use of the brain and that the research gave neurobiological evidence that people develop greater wisdom as they age.

He compared the difference in performance between the older and younger people to the hare and the tortoise in the well known fable: "Being able to run fast does not always win the race - you have to know how to best use your abilities. This adage is a defining characteristic of aging. It is as though the older brain is more impervious to criticism and more confident than the young brain."

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