A young child is easily distracted by anyone and anything. A noise, an animal, a picture, a toy and a host of many other things. Their young minds find it difficult to stay focused on anything. One of the hardest things that teachers of younger students face is being able to keep the attention of their students. They find that they have to use shorter lessons to reach them.

As we get older in school, we are expected to be able to keep our attention focused on lessons for longer periods of time. When you get old enough to venture out into the working world, you are expected to keep your attention focused for an entire work day. Those who struggle with this also struggle in many aspects of life.

By the time we reach retirement age, we are still expected to keep our attention focused on the tasks before us but some find that as the older they get, the more difficult it is to keep their attention on what they are doing They seem more apt to be distracted just like a preschooler. It’s usually just chalked up to age without explaining why it happens,

New research conducted at the University of Southern California (USC) may finally shed some light on why seniors become more prone to distractions. They found that many seniors are easily distracted when they experience stress or some other strong emotion. To some of us, that’s not news at all but this study may help us understand:

“A USC-led study finds that seniors’ attention shortfall is associated with the locus coeruleus, a tiny region of the brainstem that connects to many other parts of the brain. The locus coeruleus helps focus brain activity during periods of stress or excitement.”

“Increased distractibility is a sign of cognitive aging, said senior author Mara Mather, an expert on memory and professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. The study found that older adults are even more susceptible to distraction under stress, or emotional arousal, indicating that the nucleus’s ability to intensify focus weakens over time.”

“‘Trying hard to complete a task increases emotional arousal, so when younger adults try hard, this should increase their ability to ignore distracting information,’ said Mather, who is also a professor with the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. ‘But for older adults, trying hard may make both what they are trying to focus on and other information stand out more’.”

The locus coeruleus is also believed to be associated as playing a role in Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

“Previous research led by Mather, director of the USC Emotion and Cognition Laboratory, has highlighted the locus coeruleus and its roles in cognition and memory. Currently, Mather is focused on studying how locus coeruleus function changes during aging and Alzheimer’s disease.”

“The locus coeruleus appears to be one of the earliest sites of tau pathology, the tangles that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. An estimated 5.7 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, which is the nation’s the sixth-leading cause of death.”

“‘Initial signs of this pathology are evident in the locus coeruleus in most people by age 30,’ Mather said. ‘Thus, it is critical to better understand how locus coeruleus function changes as we age’.”

Researchers like Mather and her many other colleagues hope that identifying the area of the brain responsible for our being so easily distracted may eventually lead to ways to overcome such distractions and even help the learn how to treat Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Such treatments generally start with discoveries like this, so we need to see this as offering hope for future seniors.