Production of Dopamine diminishes at the age
With the age humans become obviously not only more forgetful, but also more indifferently. American researchers found out that the reward center in the brain fewer Dopamine pays, the becomes older one.
Washington - the reward system in the brain reacts with younger people more strongly to reward attractions than with older. This is connected with the fact that the chemical messenger Dopamine with increasing age in smaller quantities is manufactured, as a researcher team found institutes out around Karen Berman of national the OF mentally Health (NIMH) in Bethesda (the USA). On the results of their investigation report the neuro scientists in the technical periodical “PNAS”.
Gambling for the research
The researchers examined 20 young participants in the average age of 25 years and 13 older participants, who were on the average 66 years old. These participated in a kind gambling, with which they saw a play automat on a screen. First the test persons one indicated, they could win which amount in the following passage, the won amount became following faded in. At the same time the scientists with a magnet resonance Tomographen (MRT) took up pictures of the brain.
Both if the test persons expected a profit, and if they had received a profit, certain regions of the brain reacted with the younger ones clearly more strongly as in the group of the older ones. It concerned thereby areas in the middle and front part of the brain, which are counted to the reward system.
The older, the more strongly the attraction must be
Additionally Dopamine existed in the central brain a direct connection, determined the team around Faith Berman between the reaction of the reward centers and the chemical messenger. Dopamine is a substance, which plays an important role with positive feelings. Like that a stronger dopamine production was connected with an intensified activity in the front brain with the younger ones. With the older ones against it the activation was stronger in the front brain with a smaller dopamine level. The explanation for the fact could be that this brain region must react with increasing age less to Dopamine and be more strongly activated to reconciliation for it.
This shows that the brain processes reward attractions with increasing age differently and that this is connected with changes in the dopamine system, writes the researchers. The results could be important for the development of new medicines, which exert influence on disturbances of the dopamine system in the age. (strip packing)
