Cambios en el cerebro podrían afectar la toma de decisiones en la vejez

Pero un entrenamiento especial podría ralentizar el declive, afirma un investigador

Robert Preidt

Traducido del inglés: miércoles, 18 de abril, 2012

MARTES, 17 de abril (HealthDay News) -- La capacidad de tomar decisiones ante situaciones nuevas declina con la edad, aparentemente debido a cambios en la materia blanca del cerebro, señala un nuevo estudio de imágenes. Los investigadores pidieron a 25 adultos que tenían entre 21 y 85 años de edad que realizaran una tarea de aprendizaje que tenía que ver con el dinero, al mismo tiempo que se sometían a una IRM del cerebro.
Hallaron que los declives relacionados con la edad en la toma de decisiones se asocian con el debilitamiento de dos vías específicas de la materia blanca que conectan un área llamada corteza
prefrontal medial (localizada en la corteza cerebral) con otras dos áreas más profundas del cerebro, llamadas tálamo y estriato ventral.
La corteza prefrontal medial tiene que ver con la toma de decisiones, el estriato ventral participa en aspectos emocionales y motivacionales del cerebro, y el tálamo es un centro de relevo altamente conectado.
"La evidencia de que este declive en la toma de decisiones se asocia con la integridad de la materia blanca sugiere que podría haber formas eficaces de intervenir", aseguró en un comunicado de prensa de la Universidad de Vanderbilt el primer autor del estudio Gregory Samanez-Larkin, miembro postdoctoral del departamento de psicología y del Instituto de Ciencias de las Imágenes de la universidad, en Nashville, Tennessee. "Varios estudios han mostrado que las conexiones de la materia blanca se pueden fortalecer mediante formas específicas de entrenamiento conductual".
El estudio se publicó en la edición del 11 de abril de la revista Journal of Neuroscience.
Samanez-Larkin realizó el trabajo mientras era estudiante de grado en la Universidad de Stanford, en Stanford, California.

Artículo por HealthDay, traducido por Hispanicare

FUENTE: Vanderbilt University, news release, April 11, 2012
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/news/fullstory_124240.html

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