Exploring the Crossroads of Attention and Memory in the Aging Brain: Views from the Inside

Dr. Adam Gazzaley studies the neural mechanisms of memory and attention, how these processes change with normal aging and dementia, and how we might intervene therapeutically to alleviate memory and attention deficits. Recorded on 11/03/2011. [4/2012] [Show ID: 23203]

Please Note: Knowledge about health and medicine is constantly evolving. This information may become out of date.

Explore More Health & Medicine on UCTV
UCTV features the latest in health and medicine from University of California medical schools. Find the information you need on cancer, transplantation, obesity, disease and much more.

UCTV is the broadcast and online media platform of the University of California, featuring programming from its ten campuses, three national labs and affiliated research institutions. UCTV explores a broad spectrum of subjects for a general audience, including science, health and medicine, public affairs, humanities, arts and music, business, education, and agriculture. Launched in January 2000, UCTV embraces the core missions of the University of California -- teaching, research, and public service – by providing quality, in-depth television far beyond the campus borders to inquisitive viewers around the world.

[junodx]

Very interesting stuff. The best thing about the internet is Youtube and content like this - thank you for posting it. 

[aylaturkmen]

Thank you for sharing such a valuable info openly with public. 

[paulMcGlothin]

Great talk -- addresses lots of important practical issues.

[BaskingInObscurity]

For me, I put myself in "distracting" environments deliberately in order to control the types of sensory input. If I don't control it, random distractions and sources of anxiety or pleasure intrude. And I dwell on things, often repeating a phrase in my head many times over. Just because Nature is cruel, I also have had chronic tinnitus as long as I can remember, which used to become my primary distraction, the volume seemingly growing louder; during puberty it was worst when trying to go to sleep, so I kept a tiny radio under my pillow.

For tasks that do not require all my attention, my mind wanders and I get fidgety, engage in stimming. So doing homework I usually had music because most of the time lyrics don't draw my primary attention thread, whereas most talking does. The exception was mathematics and math-heavy science problems, which I did better while a TV program was on. Very dense text, e.g. social theory college materials, requires I focus without distractions, in which case I put myself in a quiet place facing a plain wall. Nowadays I work on the computer, gaming and otherwise, almost always with YouTube, audiobooks, or DVR running in the background. I just avoid the programs I need to pay attention to unless window-within-window is adequate for the glancing input. I'd never get anything done if I couldn't multitask, very seldom sit to watch TV because it's hard to do anything else simultaneously in the common room.

[johnwinebrenner]

I am a mall walker, I have put bells on my walking stick because people on cell phones don't see me. That is another way of saying people with Iphones are more dangerous than Grizzly bears!

[helenberber]

Dear prof. Gazzaley, thank you for the usefull presentation. People who work or study in coffee shops WE LOOK FOR DISTRUCTIONS, I personaly can study or work around 10 hours per day forgetting other parts of life, so making the choice to study in coffee shops, in the beach, in the park is part of our concentration proccess, but also give us the opportynity to interact we others. I personally choose also museum bars to study, it is really a happy environment. Even at home its better to choose to have our desk closed to windows and natural light. Is an isolation to produce the best of us, we enjoy it, but we are human beings and the interaction with everything around us is helpful. A bad distruction is a car accident out of the library, a good distruction is when you study at starbucks and the guy that studies next to you he will ask to share the next brake. And multitasking when brings you happiness doesnt have bad affection in your concentration. I f the phone rings when you study and is the bank calling you is bad of course you will loose your concentration, but if you cook to take care of yourself and you pass again the important pieces for an exam is eally an increase for your attention on something. It is everything about enjoying ourselves and have good vibes around. Of course, when it comes to safety it is an other topic. Wonderful presentation in any case and very helpful.

[roohisualeh]

Sometime we like to sit in distracting environment just because you want to study in relaxing place and you can sit longer that can improve the productivity due to time factor.

[FromCI-ziye]

00:00 Intro
31:00 Attention and memory.

[unicornfeather]

Is there also the possibility that older adults aren't 'suppressing' as well as younger adults because they were raised in a quieter, more calm, less distracting and frantic world where there wasn't 15 devices or even internet to distract and pull on your attention? (And their parents before them, in turn, lived in a perhaps calmer less frantic world with fewer distractions as well.)
Can the act of suppression be a learned skill due to increased long term environmental demand such as the Millenial Generation would be dealing with (due to growing up as an internet native---always having the internet in their world?)

Is it a learned skill, a latent function, a defense mechanism (like the opening and closing of the ear canal depending on safe/unsafe decibel levels) or is it an ability that has always been there generation after generation, inherent but latent? What is the underlying biological function and history of suppression and is it changing due to the rapid pace of change and exponentially increasing levels of distractions (in both frequency and volume as well as potency and intensity) of our current evolving environment?

Are older people not suppressing as well because they never had to?

[khairulorama]

Thank you for such a beautiful understanding on distractions

[randystevens]

This will help me either destroy or disconnect some nanochips inside my brain!!! Thank you

[ArtsCraftsAntiquity]

Anything about a ketogenic lifestyle in here? If not than why not?!

[AllenBarclayAllen]

Inrtesting "HOW DO YOU MULTI TASK" Well right know I'm riding a stationary bike wile texting and interacting with your University speech. So far I have put 40 miles in several hours wile talking to my Daughter on Father's day and listing and texting you on your university presentation.
Now later I will play the piano, boggie woggie first to multi-task my left brain with my right brain (two different hands two different functions to the same rythem), while watching your show or carrying on a conversation with my daughter on Father's day. Pluss I'm playing a piano with the rythem section represented on all the keys meaning I will have to hold down certain notes in the chord of the rulythem section to keep the rythem section playing the same cord back up to the music I'm playing while playing base rifts with my left hand boggie woggie stile MULTIPLE MULTITASKING.!
WHY? BECAUSE I'M A MUSIC WRITER AND I INTEND KEEPING MY MIND INTELENGENTLY ALIVE WHEN I'M 90 YEARS OLD DOING THE SAME WRITING MISIC.
ALSO I HAVE WRITTEN SCIENTIFIC PAPERS WILE CARINING ON CONVERSATION WITH PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME PARTICULARLY MY DAUGHTER TAMARA ON FATHER'S DAY..!
MULTITASKING IS WHERE ITS AT PEOPLE.
TAMARA SAYS DAD MEN CAN'T DO THAT..! ONLY WOMEN CAN DO THAT. MEN CAN'T DO THAT DAD THAT YOU DO..!

[meinungabundance]

The main question here seems to me the question: WHY? why elderly dont supress the irrelevant stimuli better? And the answer might also be that after 65 you don't HAVE to achieve any goals, you are usually retired and can allow yourself to perceive differently (let everything in...). Even if they are not doing it on purpuse, it might be a subconsious change of attitude, which affect their ability to supress.

[swirlcrop]

This is such an interesting talk. Thanks for posting it. :-)

[lurkern]

Thank you for sharing! Especially interested in the focused meditation study, was thinking about rhodes during the talk, so glad you included the questions part! will most definitively follow this bright minds research. uctv is an awesome channel :) keep up the good work

[Moonstorms]

Isn’t yhwh amazing he has made us so so amazing..

[unicornfeather]

Can we get an update now that it is 2019? What is the latest findings? We thirst for more of your knowledge dear sir! And we thank you!

[quill]

This may be slightly off topic, Dr. Gazzaley, but I wonder whether the phenomena of dreaming might reveal a lot about persistence and memory. There is that moment upon waking from a dream in which it often seems as though we have perhaps just a few seconds in which we can attempt to recall vivid aspects of that particular dream, but if we do not, the memory of these recent thoughts, ideas, and events within a dream frequently seem to recede away from our conscious memory and do so at an extremely rapid rate! It's often as if the brain is trying to "drag" such thoughts and memories away from the process of being remembered or stored, such that if more than a minute transpires between waking and attempting to recall what was just a vivid thought or idea seconds ago, any hope of remembering or reconstructing those thoughts and ideas seems to vanish. And yet sometimes those thoughts can be brought back later, too, and at random. - j q t -

[casiandsouza]

There should be a comparison between golfers and soccer players.