Yaë1: Sometimes I hate reading the paper, it's always full of bad, depressing news!

Don: Look on the sunny side, Yaël, you probably won't feel so upset about bad news      when you get older.

Y: Why not? Is the world going to be less troubled in the future?

D: I can't promise that, but even if the news stays just as disheartening, your emotional      response to negative news may lessen as you age.

Y: Really? What about the stereotype of "grumpy old men"?

D: Actually, elderly people report a higher sense of well-being than younger people do,      and studies show that as we age, our emotional responses to the world become      more positive.

     But scientists wanted to know what causes this shift in seniors' serenity at a neural      level. Is it an increase in processing of positive information, or a decrease in      processing of negative information?

     Researchers measured electrical activity in the brains of people between age eighteen      and eighty-one while they viewed a variety of images, such as ice cream or a car      wreck. For each image, participants were asked to describe their feelings as positive,      negative, or neutral.

     The brain activity of the participants was compared with the emotions they reported.      The study found that the older the participants were, the less their brains responded      to negative images, but responses to positive and neutral images did not change with      age.

     While the reasons for the change in responses to negative images are not yet known,      the study adds to a growing body of evidence that aging changes how the brain      reacts to emotional stimuli.

Y: Now that's hopeful news! But since we're still young let's work to make the world a      better place, so there's less to feel down about in the first place.

D: Great idea!  

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