These findings suggest that better managing unfavorable emotions might help in reducing neurodegeneration.
A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has actually revealed the methods which unfavorable emotions have a long lasting effect on brain activity in older adults.
The start of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia is believed to be promoted by unfavorable feelings, anxiety, and anxiety. Nevertheless, the effect of these feelings on the brain and the possibility of restricting their harmful results are still a matter of examination. To clarify this topic, neuroscientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) studied the brain activation patterns of both young and older adults when they were exposed to the psychological distress of others.
The neuronal connections of older grownups display considerable psychological rigidity: unfavorable emotions excessively and constantly change these connections, especially in the posterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala– two brain regions that play important functions in emotion guideline and autobiographical memory.
The effect of these emotions on the brain and the possibility of limiting their damaging effects are still a matter of investigation. How does the brain switch from one feeling to another? What are the repercussions for the brain of mismanagement of emotions?”.
Older people tend to regulate their emotions better than more youthful individuals, and focus more quickly on positive information, even throughout an unfavorable event. Changes in connection in between the posterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala could show a variance from the regular aging phenomenon, accentuated in individuals who show more anxiety, rumination, and negative emotions.
These outcomes, to be released in Nature Aging, show that much better management of these feelings– through meditation for instance– might assist limit neurodegeneration.
For the previous 20 years, neuroscientists have been taking a look at how the brain responds to emotions.
” We are starting to comprehend what occurs at the minute of understanding of an emotional stimulus,” discusses Dr. Olga Klimecki, a researcher at the UNIGEs Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences and at the Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen, who is last author of this study performed as part of a European research job co-directed by the UNIGE.
” What happens later stays a mystery. How does the brain switch from one feeling to another? How does it return to its initial state? Does emotional irregularity modification with age? What are the effects for the brain of mismanagement of feelings?”.
The top image illustrates the varying brain activations in between 27 older adults and 29 younger grownups throughout rest durations following high-emotion (post-HE) and low-emotion (post-LE) videos in Experiment 1. The bottom image shows the brain areas that react to rest durations following HE > > LE, in addition to the overlap of these activations with psychological responses during the HE > > LE videos in Experiment 2, with information from 127 older adults. Credit: © Figure adapted from Baez-Lugo et al., 2023, Nature Aging.
Previous research studies in psychology have shown that a capability to alter feelings rapidly is useful for mental health. Conversely, people who are unable to manage their emotions and remain in the very same emotion for a very long time are at greater risk of depression.
” Our aim was to determine what cerebral trace remains after the watching of emotional scenes, in order to examine the brains reaction, and, above all, its recovery mechanisms. We focused on the older adults, in order to determine possible differences between normal and pathological aging,” says Patrik Vuilleumier, professor in the Department of Basic Neurosciences at the Faculty of Medicine and at the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences at the UNIGE, who co-directed this work.
Not all brains are produced equivalent.
The scientists showed volunteers brief television clips revealing individuals in a state of emotional suffering– during a natural catastrophe or distress situation for instance– as well as videos with neutral psychological content, in order to observe their brain activity using practical MRI. The group compared a group of 27 individuals over 65 years of age with a group of 29 individuals aged around 25 years. The very same experiment was then duplicated with 127 older adults.
” Older people generally show a various pattern of brain activity and connection from more youthful people,” says Sebastian Baez Lugo, a scientist in Patrik Vuilleumiers lab and the very first author of this work.
” This is especially obvious in the level of activation of the default mode network, a brain network that is highly activated in a resting state. Its activity is often interrupted by depression or stress and anxiety, suggesting that it is involved in the regulation of feelings. In the older grownups, part of this network, the posterior cingulate cortex, which processes autobiographical memory, reveals an increase in its connections with the amygdala, which processes important emotional stimuli. These connections are more powerful in subjects with high anxiety ratings, with rumination, or with negative ideas.”.
Empathy and aging.
Older people tend to control their emotions better than more youthful people, and focus more quickly on favorable information, even throughout an unfavorable occasion. Modifications in connection in between the posterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala might indicate a variance from the normal aging phenomenon, accentuated in people who show more anxiety, rumination, and unfavorable feelings. The system of psychological inertia in the context of aging would then be explained by the fact that the brain of these people remains frozen in a negative state by relating the suffering of others to their own emotional memories.”.
Could meditation be a solution?
Could it be possible to prevent dementia by acting on the system of emotional inertia? The research study team is currently carrying out an 18-month interventional research study to examine the effects of foreign language learning on the one hand, and meditation practice on the other.
” In order to further refine our outcomes, we will also compare the results of 2 types of meditation: mindfulness, which includes anchoring oneself in today in order to concentrate on ones own feelings, and what is understood as compassionate meditation, which aims to actively increase favorable emotions towards others,” the authors include.
Referral: “Exposure to negative socio-emotional occasions induces sustained modification of resting-state brain networks in older adults” by Sebastian Baez-Lugo, Yacila I. Deza-Araujo, Christel Maradan, Fabienne Collette, Antoine Lutz, Natalie L. Marchant, Gaël Chételat, Patrik Vuilleumier, Olga Klimecki and Medit-Ageing Research Group, 12 January 2023, Nature Aging.DOI: 10.1038/ s43587-022-00341-6.
This research study becomes part of a big European study, MEDIT-AGEING, which intends to assess the impact of non-pharmacological interventions for much better aging.
