New findings suggest that the brains of older women perceive upsetting images in different way than young women. It’s a clear indication that the human brain, with the passage of time, learn to handle the bitter experiences of life.

“Older adults are able to show a less reaction to negative emotions,” said Roberto Cabeza, psychologist of Duke University.

Researchers have thought that the older people deal with emotions differently or less reactively than the young, Cabeza said. “Reports have provided us with the fact that there’s a shift in the bias, perhaps a reduction of negative emotions and stress on processing positive emotions,” he said.

For the execution of the theory about brain, Cabeza and his colleagues isolate 15 young of average age 25 and 15 older healthy women with average age 70.

The women were shown pictures chosen to draw positive, neutral and negative responses. In next step, the women were tested to reveal which photos they remembered. The fMRI technology was also implemented to measure neural activity.

Though both groups of women remembered negative images, the older ones memorized lesser than the young women, Cabeza said. Less activity between different neural areas has been examined in the brains of old women.

Why it only happened to the old ladies? “They have suffered negativities in life such as illnesses, death of friends, relatives and spouses,” Cabeza said. “It’s possible with this change and shift, by paying less attention and processing fewer negative events, we’re protecting ourselves from these negative events.”

Paul Sanberg, director of the South Florida University said “Younger people don’t have the bitter experiences in the world. They haven’t seen as many negative things in their lives as the older. That is why they don’t have the experience to cope with those things as much.”