6 replies to this topic

[InquilineKea]

http://library.nu/do...ogy Series, 49)

Doesn't look very hopeful right now though - there is pretty much NO relationship between any of the variables they measured and cognitive decline with age. That being said, they COMPLETELY neglect variables like blood glucose and insulin, and this may be where their analysis is flawed. Of course you can have high blood glucose levels and be in "good health" up to your 80s. That still isn't going to prevent the glucose from destroying your brain from inside.

Integrity of myelin can be assessed by the presence of abnormalities
known as white matter hyperintensities, which are abnormal formations of
myelin that are assumed to reflect deterioration of myelination. Diffusion
tension imaging (DTI) is a special type of magnetic resonance scan that can
detect the orientation of water molecules. When the myelinated fibers are
intact, water molecule motion is primarily in the direction of the fiber tract,
but as the fiber deteriorates the orientations of the molecules become more
diffuse. Increased age has been found to be associated both with a greater
number of white matter hyperintensities and with DTI evidence of myelin
degradation. These measures have also been linked to a variety of cognitive
variables, and thus changes in myelin are plausible as a potential mediator or
moderator of age-related declines in cognitive functioning.

==

http://www.quora.com...ecline-with-age

^Just wrote an answer above - feel free to suggest improvements. I'm just trying to make sense of all this data right now

Edited by InquilineKea, 11 June 2011 - 04:58 AM.

[InquilineKea]

http://faculty.virgi...house (in press)%20Neuroanatomical%20substrates%20of%20age-related%20cognitive%20decline.pdf

[InquilineKea]

http://books.google....ibitors&f=false

=> maybe meclofenoxate might also help preserve fluid IQ!

also see http://www.longecity...__1#entry448629

[InquilineKea]

[InquilineKea]

http://www.huffingto...n_b_878008.html

Not sure about reliability, but I'll post anyways

Skin, just like the brain, changes dramatically as we age, but different individuals age at different rates, according to one's particular set of inherited genes. External factors, such as exposure to the sun, cause premature aging of skin. Scientists have compared the biochemical changes in skin on the buttocks (a region protected from the sun) with changes in skin on the forearms (a region exposed the sun), and this has given them insight into the genetic factors that cause skin aging, and the environmental factors that age skin prematurely. The findings point to many of the same processes at work in aging the brain.

Perhaps the biggest factor is hormones. Hormonal surges during puberty are clearly seen as skin problems in adolescence. Skin mirrors the first signs of aging, due to the hormonal decline in the body accompanying aging, and as hormone levels decline, the effects on the skin are plain to see. Skin becomes thin, dry and pale in color, and it begins to form multiple fine wrinkles. But the brain is also affected by the decline in hormones. Dementia can, in some cases, be attributed clearly to hormonal deficiencies. Estrogen therapy alone or in combination with progestin treatment increases the risk of mild dementia and cognitive impairment. Interestingly, sweat glands and sebaceous glands contribute to the production of sex hormones, and they also contain the enzymes that convert testosterone to estrogen. As the levels of hormones circulating in the blood decline with age, the skin partly overtakes the function of the gonads in synthesis of sex hormones.

In many cases, environmental factors that cause aging of skin and brain cells act on the same biochemical processes that age tissue naturally. Skin aged prematurely by the sun shows deep wrinkling and develops many kinds of pigment changes. This is caused by photo damage that stimulates the body's immune response to damaged cells, which triggers inflammation. Chronic inflammation is also seen in premature brain aging, such as in Alzheimer's disease. Researchers Evgenia Makrantonaki and colleagues in Germany find that both chronological skin aging and aging of skin caused by photo damage are associated with a decline in the biological processes of lipid synthesis, cholesterol synthesis and fatty acid synthesis. Brain aging is also associated with such changes, as well as with increased chronic inflammation caused by some of the same immune system chemicals.

The biological reason that skin and brain age in similar ways is that in the early embryo, both skin cells and brain cells develop from the same kind of embryonic tissue (ectoderm). It is not feasible to do a brain biopsy to assess aging of cerebral tissue, but a skin biopsy is simple. Skin cells can also provide an experimental model for aging research on the brain, for studies of the effects of hormones, pathogens and genetic factors on aging.

Preventing premature aging of the brain may not be as easy as preventing premature aging of skin with sun screen, but a careful look at your skin could tell you how well you are doing below the surface.

[InquilineKea]

http://www.pnas.org/...7/20/1016709108

http://news.sciencem...an-b.html?rss=1

While chimps showed no significant age-related shrinkage in any of the regions measured, all of the human brain regions showed dramatic age effects, the team reports online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Some regions shrank as much as 25% by 80 years of age.

[InquilineKea]

I'm moving my own personal collection to http://www.quora.com...change with age, but I'll update this thread if I come up with anything particularly interesting