Can't Focus? Aging Brain May Be to Blame
(HealthDayNews, 2/6/06)

Dr. Cheryl Grady of the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, and team, had subjects perform memory tasks while researchers recorded functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) images of their brains. The investigators then compared the brain patterns for healthy middle-aged people against those of younger and older adults and saw a shift in patterns that may account for the decrease in the ability to concentrate with age. The scientists found that when the subjects performed memory tasks, the activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex increases more in young people’s brains than in those of middle-aged participants. In addition, the activity in the medial frontal and parietal regions, which are involved with non-task related factors (such as, personal awareness and surroundings) remain turned on in older adults, even when they are trying to concentrate. These physiological changes may explain why, beginning in mid-life, people have a harder time focusing.

(Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Feb. 2006)