plasticity did occur, which enabled the older generation to learn new things<\/strong>.<\/p>\nThe interesting discovery was that this plasticity occurred in completely different areas of the brain<\/strong>, as opposed to the areas used by the younger generation test subjects.<\/p>\nHow it works<\/h3>\n
Learning can be contributed to something called white matter.<\/strong> White matter, for those of you who might not know, is the wiring system of the brain<\/strong>, or axons.<\/em><\/strong> These \u201cwires\u201d are covered in myelin, which makes transmission of information easier.<\/p>\nThe younger generation, when learning now information, has plasticity of the white matter in the cortex.<\/strong> This is exactly where neuroscientists expected and the well-known learning center of the brain.<\/p>\nStrange as it may seem, the older generation utilizes a completely different area of the brain when learning<\/strong>. When new information is introduced, the white matter of the brain is significantly changed, but this not your younger generation\u2019s white matter learning center at all.<\/p>\nTakeo Watanabe<\/strong>, the\u00a0Fred M. Seed professor from Brown University, suggested that older people have a limited amount of white matter in the cortex, due to aging.<\/strong> When new information is introduced, the white matter is then restructured elsewhere.<\/p>\nProven<\/h3>\n
Only tests could conclusively prove these findings, and with 18 individuals aged 65 to 80 and 21 individuals aged 19 to 32, scientists were able to understand how learning occurred in these varied groups<\/strong>.<\/p>\nDuring the studies, each participant was shown a picture with lines going in one direction. As the individuals observed the patterns, the lines would change, moving across the screen as a patch of noticeable difference. Findings show that older individuals were just as prone to catch the difference and learn how to spot other changes in the images texture.<\/strong><\/p>\nScientists were not, however, just concerned about whether or not older people could learn as well as the younger ones. They had other objectives. Scientists also wanted to understand the reaction of white matter within the brain and how it changed from one age group to the other.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe second part of the test was conducted using the same basic technique, but focused on the reaction of the cortex.<\/strong> With each participant, the patch image was placed in the center of the visual field. This allowed only the cortex to focus on the image. Scientists were focusing on the gray and white matter of the brain<\/strong>. In this case, findings were different and very interesting.<\/p>\nScientists discovered that younger learners had a drastic change in the cortex while older individuals had a very large difference only in the white matter of the brain<\/strong>. In both groups, changes occurred in this focused visual field of testing.<\/p>\nThe strangest finding was that the older generation group become divided into two distinct parts:\u00a0good learners and bad learners<\/strong>. It seems that those who learned well had a distinct white matter change and those who learned poorly had the same change. This portion of the test cannot be explained.<\/p>\nSo, can old dogs really learn new tricks?<\/h4>\n
Yes, but maybe it\u2019s a little harder for some than others. It has been established, however, that the older generation as a whole can still learn new things, and seem to undergo a metamorphosis of sorts within the brain.<\/strong><\/p>\nMaybe the correlation between losing the pigment in hair and re-establishing white matter usage could be connected, who knows. One thing is for sure, we should never take for granted the wisdom and the continued intellect of our elders, and the ongoing discoveries of science!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can old dogs learn new tricks? Why, sure they can, and so can we! The understanding among society has been that older people cannot learn as well as younger individuals. New findings\u00a0contradict the notion\u00a0that older generations have less flexibility in the brain. This flexibility (plasticity) is how the brain absorbs new information,\u00a0thus forming knowledge. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[149,15,240],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learning-mind.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}