“This study has the potential to be used as a biomarker. While there are no treatments or ways to reverse the most common dementias, Deutsch said that this work could help researchers as they search for ways to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s. How fMRI can help fight Alzheimer’s disease Mariel Deutsch, Attending Behavioral Neurologist at the Northwell Health’s Neuroscience Institute. It is just mostly used in research,” said Dr. Right now, fMRI is not part of the standard of care in diagnosing dementia or mild cognitive impairment. “Overall this is going to end up being helpful. “This suggests that the brain-aging process is selective,” said Yassa.Īs a result, in the future these findings may help indicate which patients are at risk of dementia. This means if you forget where your car keys are, it may have nothing to do with how old you are. Lead author Zachariah Reagh believes these findings suggested that “not all memory changes equally with aging.” Their findings indicate that this area of the brain may not be impacted by aging as much as other areas. In this test of spatial memory, older adults completed the test better than their younger counterparts.įrom the fMRI, the team found that spatial memory is associated with a different part of the brain called the posteromedial entorhinal cortex. However, further testing complicated the idea that older adults have worse memories overall.įor the study’s second task, enlisted participants had to determine if objects had changed location. As a result, this signaling loss is one potential cause of some episodes of forgetfulness or “senior moments.” What this small study demonstrated is that the same signaling losses in Alzheimer’s disease patients can be found in people who have aged normally. This is important because the anterolateral entorhinal cortex communicates between two major parts of the brain, the hippocampus, where information is first encoded, and the neocortex, a portion that is involved with long-term storage. Scientists already knew that people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease have signal loss in this region. In the fMRI images, the scientists could see that a region of the brain called the anterolateral entorhinal cortex may have something to do with these moments of forgetfulness in older participants. They found that older adults struggled with these subtle changes and did not do as well as younger adults in identifying new, but similar, objects in this first task. “Some of the images were identical to ones they’d seen before, some were brand new, and others were similar to ones they’d seen earlier, we may have changed the color or the size,” said Michael Yassa, senior author and director of University of California Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. Thanks to the fMRI, the researchers could examine the blood flow in the brain to see which areas of the brain were utilized the most by older and younger participants during these tasks. The first task involved identifying everyday objects and then distinguishing them from new ones. Participants were asked to complete two primary tasks. They analyzed 20 healthy young adults between ages 18 and 31, and 20 healthy older adults between the age of 64 and 89. To understand what happens in the brain during these forgetful episodes, scientists at the University of California in Irvine used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyze how the brain works when recalling information. Thursday, February 25.A new study published this month in the journal Neuron, examined what exactly happens to the brain during these forgetful episodes, and finds that blaming your age for a bad memory doesn’t always make sense.

Produced in part by locally owned Goff Productions, the movie will be featured on for 24 hours starting at 9 a.m. Denise DuBarry Haye and many other locals appear in the film in small roles or as featured extras. The movie features dozens of local performers as well, and notably is the last movie Kaye Ballard appeared in before her death. Those hi-jinks ultimately lead Shatner's character, Victor Martin, to fall in love with Caroline Summers, played by Jean Smart. Shot almost entirely on location in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, the film follows Shatner and Lloyd on a series of misadventures. The movie Senior Moment, starring Jean Smart, Christopher Lloyd, Katrina Bowden and William Shatner is set for theatrical and home-streaming release on March 26th.

Senior moment car