14 DAY TRIAL // A team of experts at the University of Michigan has recently determined in a new set of experiments that brain connections indeed break down as we age, a fact that makes our physical response times increase substantially.
The researchers say that this type of evolution is unavoidable, and that it cannot be stopped with existing medical therapies and drugs.
The most important component in this equation is a brain component known as the corpus callosum, which plays a critical role in separating or unifying the two halves of the brain, whenever either is necessary.
When it comes to performing actions that only require a single part of the brain, the corpus is involved in preventing any unwanted communications between the right and the left sides of the cortex.
However, when people need to perform actions that require motor skills regulated by both hemispheres, the corpus allows for so-called cross-talk to take place, ScienceDaily reports/
As the human brain ages, the structure begins malfunctioning, explains UM School of Kinesiology and Department of Psychology associate professor Rachael Seidler.
She was also the lead author of a research paper accompanying the findings, which appears in the latest issue of the esteemed scientific journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience.
The expert and her team say that cross-talk between the two hemispheres takes place even as human seniors are resting. This is the first time the idea has been scientifically proven using lab experiments.
During the work, it was revealed that cross-talk does not benefit reaction times in the elderly, when they are trying to carry our a tasks that require a single brain hemisphere be used.
The researchers discovered that malfunctions in the corpus were responsible for allowing the two brain halves to communicate during single-handed actions, which is the main reason why reaction times decreased.
“Cross-talk is not a function of task difficulty, because we see these changes in the brain when people are not moving,” Seidler explains.
The new investigation was conducted on a test group featuring seniors aged between 65 and 75. Their results were cross-referenced with those obtained by a group of young people, aged 20 to 25.