A new research by a team at Binghamton University reveals why memory shifts as we age \u2013 and that shift happens earlier in life than most people think, potentially at middle age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is one of a growing list of studies highlighting that the period of middle age is really important for memory functioning and shouldn’t be ignored. For a long time, most studies have been focused on young adults versus older adults,\u201d said Binghamton Associate Professor of Psychology Ian McDonough, co-author of a new study published in Cerebral Cortex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McDonough and postdoctoral associate Destaw Mekbib tested a group of approximately 60 adults ages 18 to 74 by showing them faces paired with various objects and scenes. After a five-minute rest period, participants completed a memory test where they were prompted to pick the correct object or scene for each face \u2013 all while an MRI machine took readings of their hippocampal activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McDonough said the test mirrors how memories are formed. First, the brain records the new memory. Then, over a short period, the hippocampus replays the memory to stabilize it. Later, the brain retrieves the memory when needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question the researchers had, however, was how aging affects the continuity of the information passing between those stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a big decline in memory accuracy from the 20- to 30-year-old age group, to people in their 50s. Some of these hippocampal processes already start to decline by midlife,\u201d McDonough said. \u201cThat suggests middle age is really a transition point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new research by a team at Binghamton University reveals why memory shifts as we age \u2013 and that shift happens earlier in life than most people think, potentially at middle age. \u201cThis is one of a growing list of studies highlighting that the period of middle age is really important for memory functioning and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":64564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64565,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64563\/revisions\/64565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}