Adolescence and Ageing Flashcards
What are adolescence compared to adults?
More impulsive and prone to seek immediate pleasure - not equally impulsive in all situations
When is impulsivity a problem?
When it leads to drinking, risky driving, sex etc
adolescents are 3-4 times more likely to die than younger children past infancy
What affects adolescence impulsivity?
When they have enough time to make decisions, they seem to do well
peers affects this ability
Why are they at greater risk?
The prefrontal cortex is immature - decision making tasks
the midbrain is very developed - pleasure and reward - they are less sensitive to small rewards and more sensitive to large rewards
What is the antisaccade task?
Show a stimulus to teenagers - have to look away from a powerful attention getter
gradually improves during the teenage years
adolescence perform well but they seem to be putting a lot of effort compared to adults (frontal lobe regions)
children with ADHD have trouble doing it
What happens to the brains in adolescence?
Brain scans 3-25y olds every 2 years
revealed that grey matter thicker in childhood then thins out gradually
Why does grey matter thin out gradually?
due to the synaptic pruning starting from the back to the front by early adulthood
increase in white matter which peaks in adulthood
could be second phase - use it or lose it
environmental influence overly important
Who is the process completed earlier for?
Completed earlier in girls than in boys
What are the memory related impairments seen in ageing?
Alzheimers disease - severe and rapid dementia, genetic component
Age-associated memory impairment - less severe cognitive decline, seen in general population
Age associated memory impairment - no deficits in:
Implicit memory tasks - stimuli presented and there is a change in behaviour
Short term memory tasks - repeating a short list of numbers or words
Recognition memory tasks.- subject shown pictures, in the test phase they have to say which they recognise
Age-associated memory impairment - deficits in:
Free or cued recall
Recollection of context in which an event occurred
Prospective memory tasks - remembering to carry out an event
Working memory tasks - recalling words in a particular order
What is adolescence another phase of?
Brain reorganisation
What is a protective factor of ageing?
Exercise
