Want to Avoid Distractions and Stay Focused? Aging May Help

Source: Free-Photos/Pixabay

New research from Georgetown University Medical Center gives hope to millions of aging adults by suggesting that some of our mental abilities might actually get better with age.

Although it's widely assumed that getting older automatically leads to age-related declines in cognitive performance across the board, this study counters that view by showing that some mental abilities—such as executive inhibition and orienting—actually get better with age. These findings (Veríssimo et al., 2021) were published on August 19 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Human Behaviour.

For this cross-sectional study, first author João Veríssimo of the University of Lisbon and colleagues at GUMC tested aging effects on the alerting, orienting, and executive (inhibitory) networks based on Posner and Petersen's "Attention System in the Human Brain" theory (1990) in a large sample of 702 adults between the ages of 58 to 98.

What's the Difference Between Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Inhibition?

• Alerting is characterized by enhanced vigilance and being able to respond to incoming information quickly.
• Orienting involves the ability to shift cognitive resources by engaging alternative brain regions.
• Executive inhibition reflects the ability to ignore distracting or conflicting information and focus on what's important.

Each of these unique functions relies on different brain areas and a unique combination of neurochemicals. Therefore, prior to conducting this research, Veríssimo et al. hypothesized that the neural networks involved in each of these three cognitive domains might respond differently to aging.

"We use all three processes constantly," Veríssimo explains in an August 2021 news release. "For example, when you are driving a car, alerting is your increased preparedness when you approach an intersection. Orienting occurs when you shift your attention to an unexpected movement, such as a pedestrian. And executive [inhibition] functions allow you to inhibit distractions such as birds or billboards so you can stay focused on driving."

Prior evidence-based research suggests that attention and executive functions decline as we age. Still, a few small studies have given us hints that some mental abilities might actually improve with age. The latest (2021) research by Veríssimo et al. suggests that the alerting network's efficiency typically gets worse with age. However, up until the mid to late 70s, orienting and executive inhibitory efficiency seems to get better.

Orienting and Executive Inhibition May Improve With Age

"Many but not all cognitive abilities decline during aging. Some even improve due to lifelong experience," the authors explain in their paper's abstract. "[Our] results suggest variability in age-related changes across attention/executive functions, with some declining while others improve."

"These results are amazing and have important consequences for how we should view aging," the study's senior investigator, Michael Ullman, director of Georgetown's Brain and Language Lab, said in the news release.

"People have widely assumed that attention and executive functions decline with age, despite intriguing hints from some smaller-scale studies that raised questions about these assumptions," he added. "But the results from our large study indicate that critical elements of these abilities actually improve during aging, likely because we simply practice these skills throughout our life."

The researchers speculate that because orienting and inhibition are cognitive skills that help us selectively focus on what's important and block out distractions, these mental abilities might improve with regular practice across a lifespan. Over decades of day-to-day practice, these slow and steady gains may outpace age-related neural declines.

"With further research, it may be possible to deliberately improve these skills as protection against brain decline in healthy aging and disorders," Ullman concludes.