Why Memory Dims as We Age May Be Tied to Our Eyes

New research published in Neuropsychologia has determined that when older adults and younger adults are displayed the same pictures, the images trigger weaker brain activity in the older adults, which could lead to "fuzzier" memories, reports NJ.com . "We found that older adults are not building up the memory in the same way as younger adults," says Jennifer Ryan at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute in Toronto. "Something is falling apart somewhere along the path of taking in visual information through the eyes and storing what is seen into a memory." These findings could potentially lead to new tools for the early detection of cognitive impairment and dementia. For the study, 21 adults between the ages of 64 and 79, and 20 adults younger than 30, were shown images of faces, some of which were repeated multiple times. The team recorded participants' eye movements and brain activity, and found that when older adults looked at the photos, they exhibited more eye movement but less brain activity than their younger counterparts. Ryan says at some point along the path to the hippocampus, the process of converting visual information into memories is "breaking down." "It's not clear yet if there's a specific place in the brain that's kind of a gatekeeper for allowing information to reach the hippocampus, or if there are changes taking place all along the way between the visual system and the hippocampus, and the information just keeps getting a little fuzzier as it goes along," she notes.