William Klemm (WKLEMM@cvm.tamu.edu)
Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:00:16 -0500
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:00:16 -0500 From: "William Klemm" <WKLEMM@cvm.tamu.edu> Subject: Re: IFETS-DISCUSS Digest - 8 Apr 1999 to 9 Apr 1999
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One physiologist's response to the question about learning in older people:
How old is old? Certainly, anybody over 70 might have a sufficiently deteriorated brain that would keep them from learning as well as teenagers. Neurons die continually, and with a few special experimental situations, are not known to be replaced. On the other hand, the continued learning of a lifetime builds new circuit connections and reinforces existing ones so that the loss of neurons ca be offset by increased circuit capacity. Cell death, per se, is not all bad - in fact it enables circuit creation, which is most obvious in the young, developing brain where the greatest amount of cell death, on a percentage basis, occurs.
With age, the most likely learning problem is with consolidating newly learned material. Previously learned material typically persists and is often reinforced via rehearsal.
As a practical matter, I have noticed in my own classes that contain mixtures of students who are in the 18-22 year group and middle-aged people, the better grades are usually made by the older people. What they MAY lack in mental quickness for rote memorization is more than offset by their lifetime accumulation of learning-to-learn skills, emotional coping capacity, and by their motivation.
Bill Klemm
Professor of Neuroscience
W. R. (Bill) Klemm, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Professor of Neuroscience
Dept. VAPH, Mail Stop 4458
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4458
Phone: 409-845-4201
Web sites:
www.cvm.tamu.edu/wklemm
www.foruminc.com
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