Aging: It's Not What You Think | Thad Polk | TEDxUofM
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2024
- Our brains are powerful pieces of machinery that give us the capacity to do amazing things. Unfortunately, common wisdom says that age isn’t too kind to our minds’ abilities. Neuroscientist Thad Polk walks through the actual effects of aging on the human brain and shows that our assumptions might not be so accurate.
Dr. Thad Polk has been a member of the University of Michigan psychology faculty since 1996. His lab uses functional MRI, computational modeling, and behavioral experimentation to study the neural architecture of cognition, including how it is affected by aging, by experience, and by genetics. He has taught over 6,000 UM students over the past 20 years. In 2006, he was named an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in recognition of outstanding contributions to undergraduate education, and in 2012 Princeton Review included him on its list of the Best 300 Professors in the US.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx
As a man of 84 I could not quite understand the technical points of his talk but it makes me more hopeful of my memory when he concludes his speech with 'aging is a kind of transformation rather than deterioration' Thanks.
well if you can grasp a computer and youtube at the age of 84 then i would say you are doing much better than the majority of 84 years olds, most of them round by me are baffled by a modern TV
Any secret for good health sir.
Aging is adaptation to our environment through time, I think of it as a frozen lake, it will not freeze in a day, but when it's cold for many days it will, that's how our bodies are being changed, "frozen" over time.
Are u still alive?
@@slayer5097 Yes, I am getting weaker, but by the grace of God still alive, I will be 90 next Jan. Zambo.
My great aunt was born in the late 1800's but in 1975 I asked a question during her favorite TV show. When a commercial came on., she finally answered the question. It was then I realized her 'Rolodex' was simply huge. She answered the question in HER time, not mine. Her mind was fine into her 90's. She was briefly distracted by a device that was invented in her mid-age time of life but I might have used my misplaced and WRONG judgement in estimating her cognitive ability.
Fascinating way of looking at the brain and aging. Love how he explains what an fMRI is - never quite heard it put that simply!
Currently enjoying his Great Courses, loving it 😊
I wonder what effect trauma has on this, or having a loving and supportive family ,or creative pursuits , things to look forward to.etc/etc.
Fantastic !!!
Thanks Steve !
I'm older than dirt, but there are some positives about that. With age comes skills. It's called "Multitasking". I can laugh, cough, sneeze, pee and fart all at the same time!
tessamersus Lmao, could I ask how old you are ?
Lmao how old r u . The way you put all those diff things made me wheeze 😂
Something to look forward to and I’m 70
U forgot and die at same time.
this is one of the ted talks of all time
Amazing to know how to avoid secondary Aging. I have been watching so many TED TALKS and other types of speeches about the use of both Brain. I want to learn how to use all parts of brain. It would be awesome to know HOW TO use both brain.
Join a musical theatre group
Your life is your piece of art. Do it right and you will love it just as it is. Do it wrong and it will be a worthless mess.
Of course, it's anecdotal, but my experiences with my aging parents, and now my own experience with aging is that memory deteriorates. Did I do this? Where did I put this? Where did I park the car in the parking lot? What's their name? One person may be "sharp as a tack", but a lot of others, like me, notice deterioration.
My brain functions improved in many aspects after I play Taichi.
This fMRI technology seems like magic to me. I am amazed at what it can do. Thank you.
talking about the brain without diet is like talking about how a plane flies considering only the wind and ignoring the fuel it needs.
I guess he is talking about sailplanes then
LOL!
your brain start losing cells at about 30's and continue onward. You could use that to say 'old is bad'. But we have so many cells in that brain that it doesn't really mean anything. I know people who are old and boring at a very young age, and old people who are funny, open minded, original and have opinions in life that make them young and inspiring. Life intelligence is in your heart, not so much in your head.
It may make some people so young that they have not yet learned how to spell "opinions".
Sorry i am french, not english. I am just trying to be understood. that's enough for my use of it. Although, some words give me a lot of trouble, like 'doubt' that i pronounce more like 'douth', lol... but hey, thanks, i will copy that in my 'dictionary'.
You made my anxiety of old age so good. Thanks.
I used to think that I would not be cared by anyone in my old age (I'm 15).
Anuj Devgan emotions and neuroscience
Jaroslav Blagojevic What do you mean
This is beyond words. I found content with a similar message, and it was absolutely mind-blowing. "Adapting with Aging" by James Crescent
This is my current college psychology professor at u of m
He seems like a nice guy and a good teacher. I paid for two of his courses on audible
My concern with his findings is, that he did not talk about the general differences in education of today and the past. Furthermore he did not say something about the general biography of the test subjects. Those who you used their brains in their 70s might have done so already in their 20s. We just didnt have the technical tools to measure it. So my point is, were lacking a really time series. Because we cant say wether there is a decline or not for an individual as long as we didnt monitor the individual. Sorry bad english, typing down quickly
Alleggs M. You have a point but investigation cannot last 60 years xd. And does it matter if tasks are primitive?
Olexandr Vovchok may be wont need to - but it is at least mandatory to look at the biography of the test subjects. This may give hints .. but some things also need time to proof
we don't have to test individual through his life, that's just way to inefficient, but that's why we are using power of numbers, togetherness to compare , extract average etc. and from that come to conclusions and solutions
@@letsfightaging8119 no matter how, you still have to account for individual differences in a study otherwise it would be flawed..
@@almi6342 I don't think so, I think it's turning to the wrong path, cause aging is something that affect us all, small differences in aging of individual is irrelevant to study and it's waste of time
So fluid processing, the vitally important one declines with age. Which we all knew. Not much use being stuck in the middle of WAl-Mart totally lost and not knowing how to remedy it, while knowing '30 days has September........'.
New Subscriber.
I am retired. I recall so many people earning more than me. I recall thinking my paltry savings put away each year not amounting to much. The difference in return between investing options amounting to a case or two of beer based on the meagre sum of money I accumulated. From time-to-time conversations with other people about saving for retirement revealed they saved nothing because “the Government can’t let us all starve.” Saving amounts to effort, and foregoing things I wish I had or wished I could give my family. Now 47 years later, I see lots of opportunity produced unequal outcomes.
Retired in Mexico at 72 I notice that all my younger hurts come back,fine,but the worst of all is all my friends are dead or dying.Mostly from sugar or coca cola.
Well...done hit the brainiac channel...
well I am 32 and luckily so far my thinking is just as good as it was when I was 18 if not better. but then I try to use my brain every day and I have a job that requires logical thought.
I think some of these oldies got settled into jobs where they just do things by rote with no thinking required; they then come home and just sit in front of the TV. Is it any wonder their brains turned into mush and they are no longer capable of learning anything new? or for that matter even performing basic tasks?
there was the story of a civil servant who had a brain condition where water filled up his cranial cavity, destroying his brain. it had destroyed so much of his brain all that was left was a thin slice down the middle, yet he was still working in some local government job and when they tested his IQ he had the IQ of about a 10 year old child (as he had been in that job for so long he could do it without thinking)
I’m a retired carpenter,at 70,,I can count the nails in a house but I don’t because I’m thinking of other things ,any one that puts in a long hard day working is probably thinking of something else a good part of that day ,,Imagination is helpful
longevity can be attained, just by expelling excess of heat from the body. I can tell you how to do that.
@@ebrious5292 Stress is caused by excess of heat. It makes you feel tired and with lack of enthusiasm.
Those old or aging people who paid enough attention throughout their life and learned their life lessons will have wisdom. Wisdom only comes with an experienced mind. While young people's brain and mind is fresh and able to learn quickly, old people's brain and mind is experienced and therefore wise.
If only.
I have long wondered where creativity in older people seems to have fled. I could never write the poetry I wrote in my twenties, I have seen similar things in musicians - their later songs are so tame. Here's a couple examples: Quiet Riot & Country Joe and the Fish - their first two albums killed; the next ones sucked. I suppose you could blame it on drugs - but I have noticed in other fields as well - Anne McCaffery's dragon books were very interesting and then they got really pedestrian - which was followed by her doing plotting and having other writers do the rest. The Summer Queen / Winter Queen by Joan Vinge - both great - now she novelizes movies. The Dune novels had a similar downward spiral as creativity wained - or did the authors simply lose interest?
Is this what is happening - the one hemisphere of the brain starts taking over the other - though he doesn't mention this - in his video the right brain ( the logical side) is taking over part of the left - is that the causing the erosion of creativity as people age?G
How about:- its more simple than that? Once you transcribe your initial bag of ideas into words, tunes, images, you need to come up with new stuff in a shorter time-frame. That's tough. Then factor in that, as you awareness of other people's ideas grows, you might discard new ideas for being too similar when actually you are the only person who noticed.
because we have youthful optimism, ya get older and start to be jaded ,happens to best of us ...
Aging is also mental change just as biological, people change interest and taste for things over time and it's normal, like teenager wouldn't play with toys, grown man wouldn't go out all time and listen to music as he did when he was a teenager, so I'm very curious what would happen to human if we restore his body to young, where would his mind, mentality, which is not so much connected with biological structure lead to...
Aging gracefully is about TRANSFORMATION than DETERIORATION. This is why children and youth benefit from having relationship with Grand Parents.Benefit is mutual. Eastern Cultures always respected Wise Elders. Trauma (emotional and physical) may play a role in Alzheimer.
But..
If (some) old people use both hemispheres, shouldn't that be a bad thing? I thought if signals had to cross hemispheres, they would slow down.
To me it seems like a compensatory mechanism for neurons becoming damaged, defective, and dead.
I just had an ovary removed and anesthesia. I have a big difference now in cognitive dysfunction.
Man, interesting talk from old Owen Wilson
Lol 😂
Use wit to amuse, not abuse
These studies usually are about the ninety two or three percent of us who have been born with neurologically typical brains. For those of us who were born with neurologically atypical brains all of the metrics shown here should not apply.
Appreciate this comment. Would like to find a talk focusing on atypical brains.
@@justbeegreen Try a site called how to ADHD.
Thank you Jim Carey
I'm 1/2 way through your talk and saw the slide of "65 year olds." Wow, that totally blew your credibility. Those are maybe 85 year olds.
Well, aging does lead invariably to death, which, [being dead] is a quite significant cognitive deficit...
Look at the healthy Okinawan people. Still ver active while they near the age of 100
Active how ? Physically ? Or productively ? It is very important to understand what are we trying to fix by fixing aging, because if you make people physically ok, but not mentally and productively then you end up having kids all over again who needs someone's care.
👍🏾
balance: we grow older, yet reproduce less.
Wow.
B.S. People over 65 are happier only if they give up the aspirations of youth. By that logic, people who are dying are happier if they give up the aspirations of being alive.
people of all ages are happy if they give up all sorts of cravings.
might be true, actually is, i work with dying people :D (to be fair: i stopped wathing the video after the intro)
Woody Harrelson?
boyd
I am a bilogist. Please reverse my sinility
Correct your spelling first 😀
M
Wait; aging massively increases the likelihood that you will have one or more than one disease or disorder that directly affects cognitive ability. High B/P, diabetes of both types, Parkinsons, Cancer and it's treatment, depression, drug side effects...I could go on but I don't have to. This man doesn't live in the real world, in which we aren't lab rats. In the real world, as we age these things are massive contributors to functional deficits. I am an occupational therapist, and we help people with daily living tasks. There is no better way to see brain dysfunction that to ask an older client do a familiar daily living task. I don't need an fMRI to tell you things have gone south.
Nommm m
Habe
Kindo
I am considering starting a home health care business and want some opinions. I have decided to name it Last Breath Home Care Service and we will focus on elderly patients. Please respond to give me some idea on your thoughts on the name of the business.
Thumbs down on the name. Very insensitive, and a place where I would wonder if they were putting people down. Euthanasia is the first thought that came to mind.
he sounds like jschlatt
"Fluid processing" or Spearman's g is the one metric that actually matters. "Crystallized" knowledge is a function of fluid processing (working memory). There is no silver lining - aging is bad for your brain and cognitive function. End of story.
!
I believe you are making a big mistake, young man. Aging is an opportunity. Becoming old is a failure.
Aging is inevitable; wisdom is optional
Aging as being damaged and sick is bad, aging as living long in good health is good.
You are not old enough to talk about been old ok I’m in my late eighties let me tell you now... ageing can also be looked as a disease coss you come thru the years with many diseases you may have been infected thru your lifetime .. just saying
Lol, how encouraging and self hypnosis, keep going, the matter of the fact is not so...
first
OK Professor Polk. This is all good information, but your fluid and crystal processing testing is all subjectively controlled. What about people outside the norm like me who served in Iraq with PTSD and Bipolar condition? Or those with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from bomb blasts? Have you performed any aging tests on them?
Roddy, this is sort of off topic is it not? Mental decline due to age and damage are very different fields... This is theoretically a "physical" issue while PTSD and bipolar are more "psychological" in nature.
No PTSD id just not just physiological event in the brain. It does have definite physical effect on the brain. I would think some one of your stature would know that. Unless you are limiting your source of research respondents to have a predictable outcome for your predictions???
SkiLoveRock Beats , you need to study the work of Bessel vander Kolk, M.D. His masterful book is "The Body Keeps the Score." PTSD is a neuropsychological disease which is governed by the brain, particularly the amygdala.
Bob Taylor lgjchyv.
If you are NOT poor, subsidized housing, hungry, medicare/ medicaid then your advice is moot.
Even your parents come and go, ur neices and siblings go off and get married. U need to make sure u have ur own wife and own kids when u start aging. Even the Bible says that.
Please STOP putting those of us over 65 in some kind of a f..... study. everyone is different, an individual... Mind your own business and we will
mind ours.... Look in the mirror if you must, take care of the bags under your eyes..........
They are trying to understand what aging is, for all humanity, because we will all get to old age and we don't want it to be bad as it is now with all the disabilities and damages. They are studying young people too, and then trying to understand what is creating damages.
Aging sucks and old age sucks. God made a mistake,
Yes, aging sucks. Google's Calico and SENS Research Foundation are among those currently working to solve this. This means improving quality of life, restoring the body's optimal functioning and thereby extending the human healthspan and lifespan. I urge you to join the Healthspan Hub advocacy live chat (discord.gg/ftSbffu) to learn more. With realistic prospects for rejuvenation biotech to alleviate suffering, it's our responsibility to act now.
Joelleen Beanks t
If we lived forever,our species would become VERY stale!( Redundency)
On a personal level,aging is a bitch.I don’t really mind dying...I just hate having my quality of life decrease as time ticks on.
This is very true. I never felt better, and I'm in my late 50s!