With age, parasympathetic activity decreases, while sympathetic activity increases. Thus, the typical older adult has low heart rate variability (HRV) and high noradrenaline levels. Younger adults with this physiological profile tend to be unhappy and stressed. Yet, with age, emotional experience tends to improve. Why does older adults’ emotional well‐being not suffer as their HRV decreases? To address this apparent paradox, I present the autonomic compensation model. In this model, failing organs, the initial phases of Alzheimer's pathology, and other age‐related diseases trigger noradrenergic hyperactivity. To compensate, older brains increase autonomic regulatory activity in the pregenual prefrontal cortex (PFC). Age‐related declines in nerve conduction reduce the ability of the pregenual PFC to reduce hyperactive noradrenergic activity and increase peripheral HRV. But these pregenual PFC autonomic compensation efforts have a significant impact in the brain, where they bias processing in favor of stimuli that tend to increase parasympathetic activity (e.g., stimuli that increase feelings of safety) and against stimuli that tend to increase sympathetic activity (e.g., threatening stimuli). In summary, the autonomic compensation model posits that age‐related chronic sympathetic/noradrenergic hyperactivity stimulates regulatory attempts that have the side effect of enhancing emotional well‐being.

中文翻译：

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衰老的身体和大脑中的情绪悖论

随着年龄的增长，副交感神经活动减少，而交感神经活动增加。因此，典型的老年人心率变异性（HRV）较低，去甲肾上腺素水平较高。具有这种生理特征的年轻人往往不快乐且有压力。然而，随着年龄的增长，情感体验往往会改善。为什么老年人的情绪健康不会随着 HRV 下降而受到影响？为了解决这个明显的悖论，我提出了自主补偿模型。在该模型中，器官衰竭、阿尔茨海默病病理学的初始阶段和其他与年龄相关的疾病会引发去甲肾上腺素能亢进。为了补偿，老年大脑会增加前生殖器前额皮质（PFC）的自主调节活动。与年龄相关的神经传导下降降低了预生殖前 PFC 减少过度活跃的去甲肾上腺素能活动和增加外周 HRV 的能力。但这些前额皮层自主补偿努力对大脑有显着影响，它们使处理过程偏向于倾向于增加副交感神经活动的刺激（例如，增加安全感的刺激），而不是倾向于增加交感神经活动的刺激（例如，增加安全感的刺激）。 ，威胁性刺激）。总之，自主补偿模型认为，与年龄相关的慢性交感神经/去甲肾上腺素能亢进会刺激调节尝试，从而产生增强情绪健康的副作用。