Aging & Longevity

Heightened air pollution exposure is associated with an increased risk for developing neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, yet it is unclear how pollution impacts the aging brain more broadly. Rodent research has shown that higher air pollution exposure is associated with increased impulsive behavior, operationalized as a preference for immediate reward in delay discounting tasks. We examined this relationship in middle-aged and older humans by...

Functional dedifferentiation, a hallmark of brain aging particularly evident within the frontoparietal network (FPN), has been extensively investigated in the context of cognitive decline, yet its implications for late-life mental health remain poorly understood. Leveraging naturalistic paradigm combined with gradient mapping techniques, the present study investigated FPN functional dedifferentiation-quantified by functional dispersion of FPN in the multidimensional gradient space-during...

Age-related neural dedifferentiation, characterized by lower selectivity of neural responses in high-level sensory cortex, is thought to be a major contributor to age-related cognitive decline. However, the mechanisms that underlie dedifferentiation are poorly understood. Building on prior evidence that exploratory eye movements differ with age, we investigated the role that eye movement might play in age-related declines in neural selectivity. Healthy young and older adults underwent fMRI with...

Distinct routes of cellular production from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have defined our current view of hematopoiesis. Recently, we and others have challenged classical views of platelet generation, demonstrating that megakaryocyte progenitors (MkPs) and ultimately platelets can be specified via an alternate and additive route of HSC-direct specification specifically during aging. This "shortcut" pathway generates hyperactive platelets likely to contribute to age-related platelet-mediated...

Despite suppressive anti-retroviral therapy (ART), some older people with HIV show adverse ageing phenotypes, and the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. We recruited 30 men with HIV aged ≥ 50 years and 15 well-matched men without HIV and performed histological analyses on skeletal muscle biopsies and plasma biomarker measurement, in combination with clinical and functional assessments. Men with HIV showed higher frequencies of frailty, pre-frailty, sarcopenia, and...

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Seasonal influenza is responsible for significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. Seventy to ninety percent of these deaths occur in those aged 65 or older. To determine the innate immune responses to influenza A virus (IAV) infection, young (12-week) and old (70-week) C57BL/6 J mice were infected intranasally (i.n.) with IAV PR8. Immune responses were determined by qRT-PCR and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). Old mice, as compared to young mice, had significantly higher viral loads...

The process of aging is associated with a decline in cell, tissue, and organ function, leading to a range of health problems. Increasing evidence indicates that dietary restriction can counteract age-dependent effects and improve health and longevity in whole organisms, but less is known about the influence of aging and the impact of nutrition on individual organs of an organism. In this study, we examined the intestine of the very short-lived aging model system, the African turquoise killifish...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative condition characterized by rapid degeneration of motoneurons (MNs), leading to progressive muscle atrophy and, ultimately, mortality within a few years of diagnosis. Although the precise mechanisms initiating MN degeneration are not fully understood, the involvement of non-neuronal cells, including microglia, in ALS pathophysiology is increasingly recognized. Mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-based therapies have emerged as a...

CONCLUSION: Parents of migrants often experience poorer health, chronic morbidity, psychological distress, and loneliness compared to parents of non-migrants. Despite family members being primary caregivers, parents of migrants were more likely to rely on non-family caregivers and take on financial responsibility for their care. The study highlights the need for eldercare strategies to address the caregiving gaps in areas with high adult out-migration, particularly considering generational and...

INTRODUCTION: Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that significantly affects the aging population, creating a growing burden on global health systems. Early detection of PD is clinically challenging due to the gradual and ambiguous onset of symptoms.

CONCLUSION: This study highlights the distinct mediating roles of working memory and EEG features in the muscle strength-cognition relationship. Grip strength, as a potential biomarker, may reflect central nervous system integrity and serve as a target for cognitive health interventions in aging populations.

Studies on the human brain have emphasized the loss of gray matter volume and decreased thickness during normal aging, along with variations in the density of small axon fibers across different regions of the corpus callosum (CC). Here, we investigated age-related changes in white matter connectivity in the CC and their association with handedness and cognitive decline in chimpanzees. To this end, microstructural measures of CC morphology were obtained from a sample of 49 chimpanzees. Initial...

The variation of ribosomal (parameter R), satellite III (1q12) (parameter S), and telomere (parameter T) tandem repeats content of the human genome was studied in DNA samples isolated from blood leukocytes of 535 people whose age varied from 5 to 101 years. For analysis we used the method of nonradioactive quantitative hybridization. The group of centenarians (90-101 years old, N = 106) differs from other age groups by a significantly narrower distribution of the ribosomal repeat content in DNA,...

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1155/2022/7202837.].

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Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration, a major contributor to chronic low back pain, is characterized by the age-related replacement of notochord-derived nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs) with chondrocyte-like or fibrotic cells (CLCs). However, the cellular origins of CLCs and mechanisms driving their emergence remain contentious. Using genetic lineage tracing with Shh-Cre and Gli1-CreER^(T2) to track notochordal and non-notochordal cells, respectively, we demonstrate that CLCs arise from dual...

Ageing is the major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common neurodegenerative disorder. DNA damage is a hallmark of ageing, particularly when occurring at telomeres, genomic regions vulnerable to oxidative damage and often challenging for the cell to repair. Here, we show that brains of 3xTg-AD mice, an established AD model characterized by amyloid-β (Aβ)-induced pathology, exhibit increased activation of DNA damage response (DDR) pathways at telomeres. Exposure of mouse...

Brain arteriolosclerosis, a prominent small vessel pathology in the aging brain, is associated with cognitive impairment. Understanding the link between arteriolosclerosis and neurodegeneration may be crucial towards unravelling pathways by which arteriosclerosis contributes to cognitive impairment. Using a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in-vivo classifier for ARTerioloSclerosis termed ARTS, we examined cross-sectional associations between ARTS, cortical thickness, and cognition. Data...

Aging is characterized as a process resulting in the structural and functional deterioration of several essential organs and tissues. This study aimed to determine the effects of normal aging on the cerebellum by using histological and histometric techniques. A total of 24 male Wistar albino rats were divided into three groups: young (4-6 weeks), adult (20-22 weeks), and old (22-24 months). Cerebellar tissue samples were treated using histological and immunohistochemical techniques. The slides...