Science & Technology

Older brains slower due to knowing so much

By T.K. Randall
January 22, 2014

Image: Inside My Head
Credit: Andrew Mason / CC BY 2.0 (adapted) It was long believed that as a person gets older they have a more difficult time remembering things due to the cognitive decline of their brain, but now scientists have revealed that it is more likely to be down to the simple fact that the older you are, the more information you have stored in your head.

"The human brain works slower in old age but only because we have stored more information over time," said Dr. Michael Ramscar. "The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more."The effect is being likened to that of a computer with a full hard drive - data takes longer to access than on a computer with more free space.

"Imagine someone who knows two people's birthdays and can recall them almost perfectly," said Dr Ramscar. "Would you really want to say that person has a better memory than a person who knows the birthdays of 2000 people, but can ‘only' match the right person to the right birthday nine times out of ten?"

Source: Telegraph

Tags: Brain.Memory