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Edmunton, Alberta, Canada. Does emotional wisdom come with age? Researchers identified brain patterns that help healthy people over the age of 60 regulate and control emotion better than younger counterparts. Two brain regions increased activity when participants viewed standardized pictures of emotionally challenging situations.
Dr. Florin Dolcos, University of Alberta (U of A), conducted the study in collaboration with researchers from Duke University. Dolcos is a member of the Alberta Cognitive Neuroscience Group. The U of A group brings together researchers from the U of A to explore how the brain works in human thought, including issues like perception, attention, learning, memory, language, decision-making, emotion and development.
Effects of aging on functional connectivity of the amygdala during negative evaluation: A network analysis of fMRI data. Peggy St. Jacques, Florin Dolcos, Roberto Cabeza. Neurobiolology of Aging ePub 2 May 2008. doi: 10.1016 / j.neurobiolaging.2008.03.012. PII: S0197-4580(08)00105-X.
The study, published in Neurobiology of Aging, was performed under the co-ordination of Dr. Roberto Cabeza and in collaboration with Ms. Peggy St. Jacques, both of Duke University. Dr. Dolcos received his training in brain imaging research at Duke.
"Previous studies have provided evidence that healthy older individuals have a positivity bias – they can actually manage how much attention they give to negative situations so they're less upset by them," said Dolcos.
"We didn't understand how the brain worked to give seniors this sense of perspective until now."
During the study, younger and older participants were asked to rate the emotional content of standardized images as positive, neutral or negative, while their brain activity was monitored with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. The fMRI device uses a large magnet to take pictures inside the brain.
The older participants rated the images as less negative than the younger participants. The fMRI scans helped researchers observe this reaction in the senior participants. The scans showed increased interactions between the amygdala, a brain region involved in emotion detection, and the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region involved in emotion control.
According to Dr. Dolcos, "These findings indicate that emotional control improves with aging, and that it's the increased interaction between these two brain regions that allows healthy seniors to control their emotional response so that they are less affected by upsetting situations."
This research may have clinical implications. "If we can better understand how the brain works to create a positivity bias in older people, then we can apply this knowledge to better understand and treat mental health issues with a negativity bias, such as depression and anxiety disorders, in which patients have difficulty coping with emotionally challenging situations," Dolcos said.
Effects of aging on functional connectivity of the amygdala during negative evaluation: A network analysis of fMRI data. Peggy St. Jacques, Florin Dolcos, Roberto Cabeza. Neurobiolology of Aging ePub 2 May 2008. doi: 10.1016 / j.neurobiolaging.2008.03.012. PII: S0197-4580(08)00105-X.
Abstract
Previous evidence has suggested both preserved emotional function in aging and age-related differences in emotional processing, but the neural networks underlying such processing alterations in the context of preserved affective function are not clear. Using event-related fMRI, we scanned young and older adults while they made valence ratings for emotional pictures. Behavioral results showed a similar pattern of emotional evaluation, but older adults experienced negatively valenced pictures as being less negative. Consistent with behavioral findings, we identified common activity in the right amygdala, but age-related differences in the functional connectivity of this region with the rest of the brain. Compared to young adults, older adults had greater functional connectivity between the right amygdala and ventral anterior cingulate cortex, possibly reflecting increased emotional regulation. Conversely, older adults showed decreased functional connectivity with posterior brain regions, likely reflecting decreased perceptual processing. Thus, age-related differences in evaluating negatively valenced stimuli might reflect decreased perceptual processing of these stimuli, as well as the engagement of control processes that inhibit the response to negative emotion.
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"Previous studies have provided evidence that healthy older individuals have a positivity bias – they can actually manage how much attention they give to negative situations so they're less upset by them," said Dolcos. 
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