Researchers who test cognitive performance may want to take heed of a recent study that suggests older adults who are tested in the morning - their optimal time of day - perform better on cognitive tasks. 
 
 
 
 Morning people: researchers found that cognitive performance is better in the morning for older adults, compared with in the afternoon. Morning people: researchers found that cognitive performance is better in the morning for older adults, compared with in the afternoon. 
 
 The researchers, from the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences and the University of Toronto in Canada, publish their results in the journal Psychology and Aging. 
 
 "Time of day really does matter when testing older adults," says lead author John Anderson. "This age group is more focused and better able to ignore distraction in the morning than in the afternoon." 
 
 He and his colleagues note that their study provides the strongest evidence yet that there are measurable differences throughout the day in brain function for older adults. 
 
 To conduct their research, the team observed 16 younger adults between the ages of 19-30 and 16 older adults between the ages of 60-82 as they took part in a sequence of memory tests between 1:00 and 5:00 pm. 
 
 For these tests, the participants needed to study and recall a set of picture and word combinations that appeared on a computer screen. As a means of distraction, the researchers programmed irrelevant words linked to certain pictures and irrelevant pictures linked to certain words to appear on the screen. 
 
 While the participants were completing the testing, the researchers scanned their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which allowed them to observe which areas of the brain were activated. 
 
 Older adults tested in morning activated same brain areas as younger group 
 
 The researchers found that the older adults were 10% more likely to focus on the distracting information than the younger adults, who largely blocked out this information successfully. 
 
 Additionally, the data gleaned from the fMRI scans showed that the older adults showed significantly less activity in the attentional control areas of the brain in the afternoon, compared with the younger adults. 
 
 The older adults who were tested in the afternoon showed signs of "idling," the researchers say, which means they were showing activations in the default mode - a set of regions that are activated when a person is resting or thinking about nothing in general. 
 
 This could indicate that the adults were having a hard time focusing, because when a person is fully aiming their attention at something, resting state activations are suppressed. 
 
 But there is a silver lining for older adults. The team found that when another group of 18 older adults was tested in the morning between 8:30 and 10:30 am, they performed significantly better. 
 
 In detail, they focused on fewer distracting items than their peers who were tested in the afternoon, and they even closed the age difference gap in performance with the younger adults. 
 
 When the older adults were tested in the morning, the researchers observed that they activated the same brain areas as the young adults did to ignore the distractions. And this could suggest that time of day when older adults are tested is an important factor in how well they perform and what kind of brain activity researchers can expect from them. 
 
 Commenting on the findings in the older adult group, Anderson explains: 
 
 "Their improved cognitive performance in the morning correlated with greater activation of the brain's attentional control regions - the rostral prefrontal and superior parietal cortex - similar to that of young adults." 
 
 Older adults should schedule mentally taxing activities for morning 
 
 Dr. Lynn Hasher, senior author on the paper, says their research "is consistent with previous science reports showing that at a time of day that matches circadian arousal patterns, older adults are able to resist distraction." 
 
 She adds that ignoring time of day when testing older adults on certain tasks "may create an inaccurate picture of age differences in brain function." 
 
 In light of their findings, Anderson recommends that older adults schedule their most mentally difficult tasks - such as doing taxes, taking a test, seeing a doctor about a new condition or cooking a new recipe - in the morning. 
 
 Medical News Today recently reported on a study that suggested people who can quickly process visual information in later life are more likely to stay mentally acute as they age. ||||| A new study provides strong evidence of noticeable differences in brain function through the day for older adults. 
 
 Canadian researchers discovered older adults perform better on demanding cognitive tasks in the morning. Moreover, brain imaging shows that during this time of the day, elders also activate the same brain networks responsible for paying attention and suppressing distraction as younger adults 
 
 The study, as published in the journal Psychology and Aging, has yielded some of the strongest evidence yet that there are noticeable differences in brain function across the day for older adults. 
 
 “Time of day really does matter when testing older adults. This age group is more focused and better able to ignore distraction in the morning than in the afternoon,” said lead author John Anderson, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Toronto’s Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences. 
 
 “Their improved cognitive performance in the morning correlated with greater activation of the brain’s attentional control regions — the rostral prefrontal and superior parietal cortex — similar to that of younger adults.” 
 
 Asked how his team’s findings may be useful to older adults in their daily activities, Anderson recommended that older adults try to schedule their most mentally challenging tasks for the morning time. 
 
 Those tasks could include doing taxes, taking a test (such as a driver’s license renewal), seeing a doctor about a new condition, or cooking an unfamiliar recipe. 
 
 In the study, 16 younger adults (aged 19 – 30) and 16 older adults (aged 60-82) participated in a series of memory tests during the afternoon from 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. 
 
 The tests involved studying and recalling a series of picture and word combinations flashed on a computer screen. Irrelevant words linked to certain pictures and irrelevant pictures linked to certain words also flashed on the screen as a distraction. 
 
 During the testing, participants’ brains were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which allows researchers to detect with great precision which areas of the brain are activated. 
 
 Older adults were 10 percent more likely to pay attention to the distracting information than younger adults who were able to successfully focus and block this information. 
 
 The fMRI data confirmed that older adults showed substantially less engagement of the attentional control areas of the brain compared to younger adults. 
 
 Indeed, older adults tested in the afternoon were “idling” — showing activations in the default mode (a set of regions that come online primarily when a person is resting or thinking about nothing in particular) indicating that perhaps they were having great difficulty focusing. When a person is fully engaged with focusing, resting state activations are suppressed. 
 
 When 18 older adults were morning tested (8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.) they performed noticeably better, according to two separate behavioral measures of inhibitory control. 
 
 They attended to fewer distracting items than their peers tested at off-peak times of day, closing the age difference gap in performance with younger adults. Importantly, older adults tested in the morning activated the same brain areas young adults did to successfully ignore the distracting information. 
 
 This suggests that ‘when’ older adults are tested is important for both how they perform and what brain activity one should expert to see. 
 
 “Our research is consistent with previous science reports showing that at a time of day that matches circadian arousal patterns, older adults are able to resist distraction,” said Lynn Hasher, Ph.D, senior author on the paper. 
 
 Experts believe the findings should inform those who study cognitive function in older adults. 
 
 “Since older adults tend to be morning-type people, ignoring time of day when testing them on some tasks may create an inaccurate picture of age differences in brain function,” said Hasher, senior scientist at the University of Toronto. 
 
 Source: Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care
– Older adults who want to take a crack at the Sunday Times crossword or try a Food Network recipe may want to do it first thing in the morning. A small study by Canadian researchers and published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that adults between the ages of 60 and 82 were less distracted and better able to perform cognitive tasks between the hours of 8:30am and 10:30am than in the afternoon, when their brains started "idling," reports Medical News Today. “Time of day really does matter," says the lead author. "This age group is more focused and better able to ignore distraction in the morning." Using a sample of 16 older adults and 16 younger ones ages 19 to 30, researchers had participants play a memory game of sorts, taking brain scans of the subjects as they were shown picture-word combos on a computer screen—interspersed with unrelated, purposefully distracting pictures and words—and then asked to recall the combinations. During testing between 1pm and 5pm, the older adults were 10% more likely than the younger ones to lose focus, Psych Central notes. However, a different group of 18 older adults tested in the morning showed increased action in the same regions of the brain as their younger counterparts and tightened the performance gap between the two groups. "Our research is consistent with previous reports showing that at a time of day that matches circadian arousal patterns, older adults are able to resist distraction," says another of the researchers. (If you want to keep your mind sharp, try learning a new language.)