A first study shows that the level of oxytocin, a hormone known to promote personal satisfaction, skyrockets – we tend to be happier. And the other, that cognitive decline due to age causes us to be more creative. the details of Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsiloon.
franceinfo: These two scientific studies which show that aging can boost the capacities of our brain?
Yes. We thank experimental psychology for announcing some good news: it is true that most of the research work carried out on the aging of the brain is rather weighty: it has been shown that with age, the efficiency and information processing speed deteriorates; learning becomes more difficult; working memory fades; problem solving becomes slower; the volume of gray matter decreases… But these two studies give us a little hope: they show that as we age, we are also happier… and more creative.
How have the researchers shown this?
The first team, which was led by a researcher from the Claremont University Neurology Center in the United States, focused on oxytocin levels. We know that this hormone is linked to the feeling of well-being. But its production as a function of age had never been precisely studied.
The researchers therefore decided to look into the question, with a group of volunteers aged 18 to 99. And they observed that the production of oxytocin increases. Which means that faced with the same event, we tend to be happier, more satisfied when we are old than when we are young.
And the other team?
There, researchers from Columbia and Harvard universities compiled numerous studies of behavior and brain function in the elderly… And they discovered a mechanism that had never been noticed until then: cluttered memories old people’s memories make it more difficult to extract information – it’s hard to remember.
But it has a positive effect: because this large amount of information that the brain goes through in a disorderly way creates more connections between ideas. It makes us more creative. It would even help our decision-making.
Happier, more creative and more relevant: this is what awaits us?
That’s it. Not bad. And for the researchers, that would explain why the elderly are on average more altruistic, more generous than the young… We have observed this for a long time, the older the volunteers in experimental psychology experiments, the more money they give out of pure generosity, the more empathy is developed.
In short, as we age, our pro-social behavior tends to increase. And that’s probably, at least in part, a story of brain biology.
https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(21)00310-7?utm_source=EA#articleInformation
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/942207