Seniors Change Their Spots and Their Neural Connections

 

“For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

“And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?"

Excerpt from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 

By T. S. Eliot (1915)

The “butt-ends of my days and ways” – presuming the eventual finality. Eliot's poem is said to be a dramatic interior monologue of a man stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action. Prufrock's awareness of his own mortality is something we seniors face … realities we all settle into as roles of surviving this long.

As I continue to age – I am almost 70 years old – I realize one vital perception. We must be open to change, no matter our age. The need to deal with the future by changing for the better must not be restrained by old prejudices and by the fear of loss of control. Time changes our society and our environment: to live in denial in a time when everything seems different is stagnating inertia … the murkiest of existence … the foulest of those final “butt ends.”

It is true our aging minds become very hardwired. As we grow older, we tend to resist change because of this process. The neural pathways in our brain have become automatic to us, and we tend to fall back on our default or automatic behaviors when we try to implement changes. As the saying goes, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

The basal ganglia in the ancestral or primitive brain are responsible for these “wiring” habits. These clusters of nerve cell bodies are involved in functions such as automatic or routine behaviors (e.g., habits) that we are familiar with or that make us feel good. The basal ganglia play a large role in procedural learning and habit learning.

But, another part of the brain, the neocortex, controls higher-order brain functions such as conscious decision-making. The neocortex is capable of vast learning, as it conceives of time and plans for the future. It also mitigates the impulses of the primitive brain. Our brain must develop new neural connections to enact new behaviors. And, this is physically draining work. In other words, our conscious actions require much more effort.

Jonas Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, has published evidence in Scientific Reports that this network is involved when it comes to thinking about closely held beliefs. Previously, Kaplan has found the default mode network is active when people read stories that reflect their personal values. Kaplan says …

“The psychological self is the brain’s extension of that. When our self feels attacked, our [brain is] going to bring to bear the same defenses that it has for protecting the body.”

(Jonas Kaplan et al. “Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence.” Scientific Reports 6. 2016.)

A negative component set firmly in the mind of older folks often denies needed change. Past resentments – the ghosts of the past – are specters that lie in wait to haunt us. We are people with many age-old scars and wounds. An unhealed wound makes us rationalize that the evils committed by a few criminals are symptomatic of the way society in general is responsible for all the evils committed, denying our own accountability

Confronting and defeating ghosts of the past are not easy tasks for us. As we age, we face undeniable psychological challenges to change:

First, because of a decline in energy and loss of brain tissue, capacities for information processing and memory decline as life progresses.

Second, the experiences one has as one ages leave a gradually growing body of attitude-relevant knowledge within the individual that serves as a source of psychological stability

Finally, a corresponding increase in social support for one's attitudes takes place as one accumulates friends who share similar social background experiences and world views as a result of friend selection and social influence processes

(J. A. Krosnick and Duane F. Alwin. “Aging and Susceptibility To Attitude Change.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1989.)

However, no matter our age, self-regulation is the process by which we can control or alter our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Self-regulation involves overriding existing habits or contextually triggered impulses and sustaining efforts over time until a specified goal is reached. It involves the capacity to project oneself into the future, form adaptive attitudes, make plans, choose among alternatives, focus attention on pursuit goals, inhibit competing thoughts, and detect discrepancies between one's current states and goal states.

(Carstensen LL, Hartel CR, editors. “When I'm 64.”National Research Council (US) Committee on Aging Frontiers in Social Psychology, Personality, and Adult Developmental Psychology. 2006.)

Here is the good news. Now, after decades of research into the effects of aging, scientists are uncovering another, more mysterious change.

“The conclusion is exactly this: that we are not the same person for the whole of our life,” says René Mõttus, a psychologist from the University of Edinburgh. Far from being fixed in childhood, or around the age of 30 – as experts thought for years – it seems that our personalities are fluid and malleable. Mottus says … 

“People become nicer and more socially adapted. They’re increasingly able to balance their own expectations of life with societal demands.”

(Zaria Gorvett. “How your personality changes as you age.” BBC. March 16, 2020.)

Zaria Gorvett, science journalist from the BBC, explains the transition …

“Most of us would like to think of our personalities as relatively stable throughout our lives. But research suggests this is not the case. Our traits are ever shifting, and by the time we’re in our 70s and 80s, we’ve undergone a significant transformation. And while we’re used to couching aging in terms of deterioration and decline, the gradual modification of our personalities has some surprising upsides.

“We become more conscientious and agreeable, and less neurotic. The levels of the 'Dark Triad' personality traits, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy also tend to go down – and with them, our risk of antisocial behaviors such as crime and substance abuse.

“Research has shown that we develop into more altruistic and trusting individuals. Our willpower increases and we develop a better sense of humor. Finally, the elderly have more control over their emotions. It’s arguably a winning combination – and one which suggests that the stereotype of older people as grumpy and curmudgeonly needs some revision.

While facing change can be devastating, we senior need to understand that the

myth that older people can’t handle change has less to do with age and more to do with personal preference. Someone who older today has experienced a remarkable amount of advancements over the course of their lifetime and has had to learn to adapt to their own set of changes, even if those things weren’t how to text or turn the webcam on.

Being open to change can lead to extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness to new experiences. And, for seniors, inclusiveness is a key to successfully accepting inevitable change. The fact is, those with generational change issues or a personality type that doesn't take well to openness find inclusiveness as others introduce them to next generation collaboration with specific objectives – this demystifies modification and empowers seniors to participate.

To close, a study led by the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, a premier international center for the study of human brain function in Toronto, found that old brains can, in fact, learn new tricks. Researchers found that older people make up for cognitive decline by using different areas of the brain to perform the same cognitive tasks as younger people.

("Old Brains Can Learn New Tricks: Study Shows Older People Use Different Areas Of The Brain To Perform Same 'Thinking Task' As Young." ScienceDaily. October 1999.)

So, let's summarize. Science confirms that we older Americans can be open and willing to change. It may not be easy to do so when our brains are already so hardwired and our old prejudices get in the way; however we have the ability to self-regulate and find new understandings. We can also grab ahold of our own neocortex and develop new connections that lead to positive actions. To refuse to change is to be less prepared for life's challenges … challenges that continue no matter our age. Being flexible also gives us something to look forward to – change, itself, can be freeing and liberating.