Grandpa Said What?!: Impulse Control and the Aging Brain

As we age, both bodies and personalities change. However, for some older adults, these changes can be quite disturbing: New research shows inappropriate social behavior, what appears to be increased racism and problems with impulse control and gambling can occur as the result of atrophy in the frontal lobe of the brain. In his recent article entitled Aging, Executive Functioning, and Social Control which will be published in the October 2007 issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, University of New South Wales professor William von Hippel discusses and what can be done to offset these changes.

According to von Hippel, the level of racism expressed by the elderly, inappropriate social behaviors, and the inability to control gambling problems are all related to lack of inhibition caused by atrophy of the frontal lobe, the region of the brain governing executive functions including the control of thoughts and actions. As we age and the status of the frontal lobe of our brain becomes compromised, we become less able to control some of our thoughts and behaviors due to "contamination" of our thought processes with unwanted information. This is caused because the unwanted thoughts take up the resources used by the brain to inhibit behaviors that may be considered inappropriate or socially unacceptable.

In the example of racism, von Hippel points out that while older white adults are typically more prejudiced than younger white adults because of the era in which they were raised, older adults are also more concerned with the image they convey. As a result, they are more apt to repress the urge to voice any thoughts that others may find offensive -- until frontal lobe atrophy occurs and executive functioning is compromised. When this happens, thoughts that would normally be controlled or filtered out may be expressed in spite of a knowledge of acceptable behavior.

Von Hippel also believes damaged frontal lobe functioning is responsible for the inability of some elderly adults to control the impulse to gamble. This is especially true for older adults who, in the past, may have had tendencies towards compulsive gambling, but were able to maintain their control until frontal lobe atrophy loosened their control over this impulse.

The article presents little information in terms of what to do to ameliorate deficits in frontal lobe functioning, but points out that circadian rhythms in the elderly are related to better impulse control and more socially acceptable behavior earlier in the day and could be used to help better study other methods of behavioral redirection.