Good news from science! According to a recent large study, 2 key brain abilities, which allow us to attend to new information and to focus on what’s important in a given situation, actually improve during aging.

The study investigated 3 separate cognitive abilities, alerting, orienting and executive inhibitory network in a group of 702 participants aged 58-98. Alerting is characterized by a state of enhanced preparedness to respond to incoming information. Orienting involves shifting brain resources to a particular location in space. Executive network inhibits distracting or conflicting information, allowing to focus on what’s important. Each of these abilities has different characteristics and relies on different brain areas and different neurochemicals and genes.

The researchers found that only alerting abilities declined with age, while both orienting and executive inhibition actually improved. They believe that the improvements are due to simply practice of these 2 skills throughout life.

Curious? HERE is the source