Tag: aging

Bio · Science

Einstein’s Brain (…and the neuroscientist who studied it)

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Marian Diamond began her graduate work in 1948 and was the first female student in the department of anatomy at UC Berkeley. The first thing she was asked to do when she got there was sew a cover for a large magnifying machine (?!?!?!?!).

“They didn’t know what to do with me because they weren’t used to having a woman. They thought I was there to get a husband. I was there to learn.”

Such challenges were not uncommon. Years later she requested tissue samples of Albert Einstein’s brain from a pathologist in Missouri. He didn’t trust her.

“He wasn’t sure that I was a scientist. This is one thing that you have to face being a woman. He didn’t think that I should be the one to be looking at Einstein’s brain.”

Marian persisted for three years, calling him once every six months, and received four blocks of the physicist’s brain tissue (about the size of a sugar cube).

Her research found that Einstein had twice as many glial cells as normal males — the discovery caused an international sensation as well as scientific criticism.

What are glial cells? Previously, scientists believe that neurons were responsible for thinking and glial cells were support cells in the brain. Now Researchers believe the glial cells play a critical role in brain development, learning, memory, aging and disease.

All text and Images via UC Research

Bio · Science · Technology · Vital-Edible-Health

Researchers Identify The Key to Aging In The Hypothalamus

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An exciting new study published in the prestigious journal Nature shows for the first time that manipulation of a brain chemical in a single region influences lifespan.

The researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine measured the activity of a molecule called NF-κB in the brains of mice. Specifically they looked as levels of NF-κB in an area of the brain called the hypothalamus. This region is considered a deep old brain region and is involved in circadian rhythm, sleep/wake, hunger and thirst functioning.

NF-κB itself is a protein that controls DNA transcription and is involved in stress and inflammatory responses.

They discovered that NF-κB levels became higher as the mice age, and the high levels were due to increasing age-related inflammation in the hypothalamus. When they blocked NF-κB activation, the mice lived longer. Increasing NF-κB activity reduced lifespan.

Furthermore inhibition of NF-κB produced dramatically reduced evidence of cognitive and motor decline in the animals suggesting the molecule stimulates the development of disease.

They were also able to increase the mean and maximum lifespan by 23% and 20% respectively in middle aged mice by inhibiting IKK-β, an enzyme that activates NF-κB.

It is also reported that NF-κB blocks gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), and by giving mice GnRH aging was slowed.

This research is being hailed as a major breakthrough in aging and could quickly lead to real therapies to prolong human lifespan, which could even simply involve regular administration of GnRH.

It suggests that cumulative stress and inflammation in the body and the hypothalamus in particular signals increased production of NF-kB in the hypothalamus which then accelerates aging leading to decline and death. It also proves that a small crucial brain region may control aging in the whole body.

The authors conclude:

To summarize, our study using several mouse models demonstrates that the hypothalamus is important for systemic ageing and lifespan control. This hypothalamic role is significantly mediated by IKK-band NF-kB-directed hypothalamic innate immunity involving microglia–neuron crosstalk. The underlying basis includes integration between immunity and neuroendocrine of the hypothalamus, and immune inhibition and GnRH restoration in the hypothalamus or the brain represent two potential strategies for combating ageing-related health problems.

Full text HERE. Text and Image via Extreme Longevity

Science · Technology · Vital-Edible-Health

Flip of a single molecular switch makes an old brain young

Sebastian Alvarez1 Comment


The flip of a single molecular switch helps create the mature neuronal connections that allow the brain to bridge the gap between adolescent impressionability and adult stability. Now Yale School of Medicine researchers have reversed the process, recreating a youthful brain that facilitated both learning and healing in the adult mouse.

Scientists have long known that the young and old brains are very different. Adolescent brains are more malleable or plastic, which allows them to learn languages more quickly than adults and speeds recovery from brain injuries. The comparative rigidity of the adult brain results in part from the function of a single gene that slows the rapid change in synaptic connections between neurons.

Excerpt from an press release by Bill Hathaway at Yale News. Continue HERE

Science · Vital-Edible-Health

The New Science of Fasting

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A new surge of interest in fasting suggests that it might indeed help people with cancer. It might also reduce the risk of developing cancer, guard against diabetes and heart disease, help control asthma and even stave off Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

“We know from animal models,” says Mark Mattson at the National Institute on Aging, “that if we start an intermittent fasting diet at what would be the equivalent of middle age in people, we can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

Until recently, most studies linking diet with health and longevity focused on calorie restriction. They have had some impressive results, with the life span of various lab animals lengthened by up to 50 percent after their caloric intake was cut in half. But these effects do not seem to extend to primates. A 23-year study of macaques found that although calorie restriction delayed the onset of age-related diseases, it had no impact on life span. So other factors, such as genetics, may be more important for human longevity.

Excerpt from an article written by Emma Young. Continue HERE

Bio · Human-ities · Science · Vital-Edible-Health

Unafraid of Aging

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The signal public health achievement of the 20th century was the increase of the average human life span. Now, as that achievement helps raise the proportion of the aged around the world, what once seemed an unalloyed blessing is too often regarded as a burden — a financial burden, a health care burden, even a social burden.

“It’s nuts,” said Dr. Linda P. Fried, an epidemiologist and geriatrician who is dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “To assume defeat from what every one of us as individuals wants suggests we’re not asking the right questions.”

Findings from the science of aging, Dr. Fried said, should “reframe our understanding of the benefits and costs of aging.”

From her perch at Mailman, a position she has held for four years, Dr. Fried is pushing students, professors and a wider audience to ask the right questions and ponder the right policies for coping with an aging world population.

Dr. Fried’s mandate is to lead a school that will give a new generation the tools to deal with global challenges to public health, including environmental degradation, climbing health care costs and the pressure of rapid urbanization. But she believes that research on aging and health changes “across the life course” are central to designing solutions to public health problems in the 21st century.

Excerpt of an article written by KAREN PENNAR, NYT. Continue HERE

Animalia · Human-ities · Science · Theory

Evolution has given humans a huge advantage over most other animals: middle age

Sebastian AlvarezLeave a comment

As a 42-year-old man born in England, I can expect to live for about another 38 years. In other words, I can no longer claim to be young. I am, without doubt, middle-aged.

To some people that is a depressing realization. We are used to dismissing our fifth and sixth decades as a negative chapter in our lives, perhaps even a cause for crisis. But recent scientific findings have shown just how important middle age is for every one of us, and how crucial it has been to the success of our species. Middle age is not just about wrinkles and worry. It is not about getting old. It is an ancient, pivotal episode in the human life span, preprogrammed into us by natural selection, an exceptional characteristic of an exceptional species.

Compared with other animals, humans have a very unusual pattern to our lives. We take a very long time to grow up, we are long-lived, and most of us stop reproducing halfway through our life span. A few other species have some elements of this pattern, but only humans have distorted the course of their lives in such a dramatic way. Most of that distortion is caused by the evolution of middle age, which adds two decades that most other animals simply do not get.

Excerpt of an article written by David Bainbridge, WP. Continue HERE