What Effect Does Aging Have On Memory?

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differences between Alzheimer’s disease and normal ageing’. Examples of such similarities between the effects of normal ageing and other experimental and clinical conditions shall be discussed at relevant points during the essay. The physiological effects of ageing on memory are still unclear. However, it is known that there is a correlation between memory decline and the degeneration of neurones. One example of such a link is the degeneration of the neural pathway between the basili nucleus and the cortex which has been associated with a decline in the storage components of memory (Pharmacology lecture, 1998).
A decline in the ability to remember new information is very typically reported as people enter middle age. Furthermore, older adults in their 60s and 70s often complain of forgetfulness and an inability to hold information in mind; even earlier in their 40s and 50s, many people note that their ‘memory is not as good as it used to be’, and complain of difficulties in ...

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memories are not mundane occurrences and are frequently recalled.
Two main types of memory are short-term memory (STM) and long-tem memory (LTM). In discussing age-related changes, STM can be divided into two subtypes: primary memory and working memory. In brief, primary memory contains small amounts of information to be remembered for a short period of time; for example, in a task in which information is held ‘passively’ and then given back as a response in the same form as it was presented. Whereas working memory is used when information must be reorganised while being ‘held in mind’, or integrated with other incoming information or with previously learned information.
LTM contains ...

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