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The Effect of Ageing on the Nervous System

The effects of ageing on the senses and memory

  • 3 things to know
  • Components 01, 02 and 03

Overview

Recall questions on structural changes in the ageing brain and slower reactions, presbycusis and reading audiograms, cataracts and their treatment, glaucoma and loss of peripheral vision, dry and wet age-related macular degeneration, and memory loss in normal ageing and dementia.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Explain why chronic glaucoma is often not noticed by the patient until it is advanced.

Key term

Give three structural changes that occur in the ageing brain.

Key term

Why do reaction times become slower with age?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Give three structural changes that occur in the ageing brain.

    Model answer

    Neurones and their synapses are gradually lost, dendrites become less branched, and the brain slowly decreases in mass.

  2. 2

    Why do reaction times become slower with age?

    Model answer

    Loss of myelin and of synapses slows the conduction of impulses and adds delay at each synapse, so the whole pathway from stimulus to response takes longer.

  3. 3

    What is presbycusis?

    Model answer

    Presbycusis is the gradual loss of hearing that occurs with increasing age.

  4. 4

    Why are high frequencies the first to be lost in age-related hearing loss?

    Model answer

    High frequencies are detected at the base of the cochlea, where the hair cells receive the most stimulation over a lifetime and are lost first.

  5. 5

    Why do older people often complain that they can hear speech but cannot make out the words in a noisy room?

    Model answer

    Consonants carry most of the meaning in speech and are made up of high frequencies, so they are lost first, and background noise masks what remains.

  6. 6

    What is plotted on the two axes of an audiogram?

    Model answer

    The frequency of the sound in hertz is plotted along the horizontal axis and the quietest sound the person can hear, the hearing threshold in decibels, on the vertical axis.

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