OLDER brains may find it difficult to adapt and learn because the links between neurons become more stable with age.
Jeff Lichtman at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and colleagues took images of individual synapses, the connections between brain cells, in mice as they got older. In young adults, the nerve endings grew and retracted quickly, but this activity slowed as the mice aged and the synapses became more stable (Nature Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1038/nn1115).
“Perhaps the fact that children are good learners but not very wise, and adults are wise but [it is] hard to get them to change their minds, is a sign…
