It appears almost everything gets harder as we get older including our arteries. Those things that don’t get hard on their own just get prescription help. Now researchers have discovered modern day multi-tasking becomes increasingly harder as we age. The research helps explain those senior moments; one minute you’re racing for the cupboard; the next you haven’t a clue why you are there. One minute you’re writing a blog about hardening of the arteries; next you’re writing about Viagra. What’s up with that? (Pardon the pun. I could have said “small inside joke.)
The researchers asked a group of 22 year olds and a group of 69 year olds to look at a picture of a scene for 15 seconds while their brain was being scanned in the MRI. While scanning, the participants were also shown a photo and were asked to determine the age and gender of the person in the photo. After the 15 seconds were up the participants were shown yet another scene and were asked to determine whether it was the original scene shown or a different one all together; thus the multitask. To no one’s surprise the older participants had more difficulty remembering whether the second picture of the scene was the same as the original. The research experiment’s MRI scans showed the brains of the older person dimmed after having their thought process interrupted while the younger participant’s brains lit up. So the old adage is true. The lights while dim were apparently on but nobody was home.
Bottom line: the older one gets the more trouble one has switching back and forth between tasks. You can't do two things at once. Drinking it is.
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