Blame It On The Brain?

We've all heard about people who seem to get more stubborn with each passing year. As I listened to the audio book "Mistaken Identity," it was interesting to hear the sequence where Whitney, recovering slowly from major head trauma, reached a point where she repeatedly asked for her dog. I mean, this went on repetitiously for nearly a full day. Physically, what had happened in the accident was that the synapses in her brain were shaken, damaged, and snapped in places. The mind is rebuilt slowly, as those neurons are connected and tissue rebuilds. It got me to wondering if in older folks, those pathways are breaking down, making it more difficult to process new ideas. "Stuck in their ways" may not be an issue of attitude, it may be a matter of run-down circuits!