Abstract
Normal aging is associated with declines of perception and cognition. Inversely, emotions seem to be preserved compared to younger adults. Viewing, neutral, dramatic and comic films, emotions were evaluated in four generations of woman from a 104-year old ancestress. At the very old age, from this case report, emotions were differently expressed while arousal was still preserved. A constant emotion of scare was expressed during the viewing of these three films (p 0.001) with significant higher level of disgust (p ≤ 0.01). Only perceptual deficiency cannot explain this difference as cognitive tasks revealed a mild cognitive impairment detected by the Mini Mental State Examination and a substantial impairment on the executive functions by using the Delayed response tasks. These results emphasize that some emotions in a normal aging centenarian are still present, even if not appropriates, and different in comparison to a young adult control group. From this study, it is expected that emotion analysis in old adults viewing selected short films will predict longevity and could discriminate normal processes occurring during normal aging from neurodegenerative diseases.
Highlights
Normal age-related changes in cognition are not uniform across all cognitive domains or across all individuals, it is well known that basic cognitive functions most affected by age are attention and memory [1]
Perceptual deficiency cannot explain this difference as cognitive tasks revealed a mild cognitive impairment detected by the Mini Mental State Examination and a substantial impairment on the executive functions by using the Delayed response tasks
The main aim of the current study was to investigate facial expressions related to state emotional reactions by four generations of woman from an ancestress of 104-year old when viewing neutral, dramatic or comic films in comparison to a group of young adult graduate students
Summary
Normal age-related changes in cognition are not uniform across all cognitive domains or across all individuals, it is well known that basic cognitive functions most affected by age are attention and memory [1]. Considerable evidence points to impairment of executive function as a key contribution to age-related declines in a range of cognitive tasks. All these age-related changes are well documented in normal human aging. Few is known about age-related changes occurring in facial expressions when perception and cognition decline in normal aging. The main aim of the current study was to investigate facial expressions related to state emotional reactions by four generations of woman from an ancestress of 104-year old when viewing neutral, dramatic or comic films in comparison to a group of young adult graduate students
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