| " The possibility of losing money stresses young adults out, but it doesn?t seem to faze the elderly. " " when anticipating rewards, certain brain regions in older adults didn?t activate when responding to a potential financial loss. " " Gregory Samanez Larkin, a psychologist at Stanford University, and his colleagues compared brain activity of 12 younger adults, 19 to 27 years old, and 12 older adults ranging from 65 to 81 years old, with half men and half women. The participants completed tasks requiring them to respond to a cue in order to win or avoid losing " " For instance, one cue would state, ?You could potentially win $5 if you are quick enough to press this button when you see a certain shape.? Once they find out what?s at stake, the participants had to wait a few seconds before beginning the task. " " For each task, the participants also rated their positive and negative feelings about the prospect of a potential gain or loss. " " When anticipating a possible gain, both young and old adults had relatively equal activation in a brain region called the striatum that?s strongly tied with rewards and was first studied in relation to addictions. The scientists also looked for activity in two other brain areas that are responsible for behavior related to losses and pain, and to a lesser degree " " ?When you tell them you might lose some money, the younger adults reported being really stressed out. They were pretty anxious about the potential to lose,? Samanez Larkin told " " ?This is just anticipation, nothing has happened yet. They may or may not lose money,? Samanez Larkin said. ?When they do actually lose money they showed indistinguishable activation.?" " There are two ways of interpreting the
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