close-up detail of mature woman with green eyes

How memory formation in older adults is broken

As people get older, forgetfulness and memory lapses can become common. However, it’s not clear what causes these changes. A new study indicates that the answer may lie in the link between what older adults see and the hippocampus. Your eye movements gather information of the world around you, and the hippocampus — which is the memory centre of your brain — binds that information together to form a memory of what your eyes see. But it seems that older adults are not forming memories this way, as younger adults would, and that something along the way is breaking the connection to memory formation.

Older adults showed an increase in visual exploration exhibited by greater eye movement, compared to younger adults.

To understand this, researchers from the Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute (RRI) conducted a study that involved 21 older adults (aged between 64 and 79) and 20 younger adults (aged between 19 and 28). The participants were briefly shown faces on a screen where some images were displayed multiple times. As the participants looked at the faces, the scientists analysed eye movements and brain scans of the participants.

In previous studies, the same researchers found that when our eyes view and process more details of the object in front of us, there is more brain activity in the hippocampus. But when the object is seen multiple times, the activity in the memory centre drops, indicating that what is seen is no longer considered new information. But this does not happen in older adults. According to the new study, older adults showed an increase in visual exploration exhibited by greater eye movement, compared to younger adults. But the relationship between visual exploration and corresponding neural responses in the hippocampus was weaker than that of younger adults, demonstrating that memory formation is weak or is not being created. In the case of older adults, when a memory is not forming and even when an object is seen multiple times, it continues to remain unfamiliar to the person.

The findings have further implications for investigating eye movements and related brain activity which could help predict earlier cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

Source: Neuropsychologia

Meena Azzollini

Meena Azzollini

Meena is passionate about holistic wellbeing, alternative healing, health and personal power and uses words to craft engaging feature articles to convey her knowledge and passion. She is a freelance writer and content creator from Adelaide, Australia, who draws inspiration from family, travel and her love for books and reading.

A yoga practitioner and a strong believer in positive thinking, Meena is also a mum to a very active young boy. In her spare time, she loves to read and whip up delicious meals. She also loves the smell of freshly made coffee and can’t ever resist a cheesecake. And she gets tickled pink by anything funny!

You May Also Like

Exhaustion and how to get rid of it

Exhaustion and how to get rid of it

Wellbeing & Eatwell Cover Image 1001x667 2024 03 06t140345.278

Butterfly mountains

Wellbeing & Eatwell Cover Image 1001x667 2024 03 06t084612.137

Does your health and wellbeing need a boost?

Wellbeing & Eatwell Cover Image 1001x667 2024 02 21t111252.796

Low carb & luscious