Aging & Longevity

Neurons maintain their morphology over prolonged periods of adult life with limited regenerative capacity. Among the various factors that shape neuronal morphology, lipids function as membrane components, signaling molecules, and regulators of synaptic plasticity. Here, we tested genes involved in phospholipid biosynthesis and identified their roles in axon regrowth and maintenance. CEPT-2 and EPT-1 are enzymes catalyzing the final steps in the de novo phospholipid synthesis (Kennedy) pathway....

SCOPE: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of mortality, especially in the aging population. Aging is one of the main risk factors contributing to CVD, leading to early mortality and a decline in the quality of life. Vascular aging is closely linked with atherosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart failure, and peripheral arterial diseases. Elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying vascular aging help to develop therapeutic strategies that can address...

Biological aging is a complex non-linear process, with markedly distinct starting and end points, yet the biomarkers of its progression remain elusive. A key assumption of most machine learning (ML) approaches for age clocks is that predictive biomedical features can be identified via mathematical transformations of data to favor a linear transition from start to end, even if they erase any natural biological pattern. It is given that expected correlations, e.g., time lived (age) and time left...

Aging is an unavoidable process associated with a progressive decline of muscle mass, strength, and regenerative ability. Satellite cells are a muscle stem cell (MuSC) population that plays a key role in mammalian muscle regeneration, by awakening from quiescence and then migrating to sites of damage, expanding in number to generate progenitor cells, and then either differentiating to rebuild the muscle tissue or self-renewing to repopulate the stem cell pool. Emerging evidence suggests that the...

Antiaging vaccines have recently been found to elicit long-term benefits in slowing the aging process. Meanwhile, high CD38 expression in organs is an aging characteristic contributing to a decreased NAD^(+)/NADH ratio. Thus, in the current study, we systematically investigate the effects of a CD38-targeting peptide vaccine (CD38-vaccine) on aging-associated phenotypes in mice. The CD38-vaccine induces a robust T-cell immune response, selectively depletes CD38^(+) myeloid cells in the spleen,...

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Clinical care for patients with limited life expectancy often requires adjustments, prioritizing immediate benefits over long-term outcomes, as the relevance of future complications diminishes. This study identifies indicators of mortality risk in horses with chronic orthopaedic conditions to enhance individualized care and welfare. Over 3 years, 123 chronically lame horses and 6 healthy control horses at an animal sanctuary underwent regular (every 3 months) comprehensive health assessments and...

CONCLUSION: This study found a significant association between frailty and multiple factors, particularly oral function. Specifically, diminished swallowing function has emerged as a notable independent predictor of frailty progression.

Cannabinoid receptor type-1 (Cnr1) signalling declines with age, which may contribute to the ageing process, as Cnr1 activity influences several hallmarks of ageing. Indeed, previous studies have shown that mice with a genetic deletion of Cnr1 (Cnr1^(-/-)) exhibit an early onset of brain ageing. However, it is not yet clear whether Cnr1 activity influences life span and the pace of bodily ageing. Thus, we asked whether the life- and health-span of Cnr1^(-/-) mice differs from their wild-type...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurocognitive disorder that affects a significant part of the population. Its symptoms include progressive loss of memory and executive dysfunction. Genetic susceptibility to AD can be influenced by allele variants of the APOE gene. On the other hand, lifelong experiences such as educational attainment, occupational complexity, and leisure activities, known proxies for cognitive reserve (CR), may modulate gene expression, ultimately impacting AD susceptibility. In...

The decline of adult neurogenesis and neuronal function during aging underlies the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Conventional therapies, including neurotransmitter modulators and antibodies targeting pathogenic proteins, offer only symptomatic improvement. As the most abundant glial cells in the brain, astrocytes outnumber neurons nearly fivefold. However, their proliferative and transdifferentiation potential renders them ideal candidates for...

Mutations in the mitochondrial genome can cause maternally inherited diseases, cancer, and aging-related conditions. Recent technological progress now enables the creation and correction of mutations in the mitochondrial genome, but it remains relatively unknown how patients with primary mitochondrial disease can benefit from this technology. Here, we demonstrate the potential of the double-stranded DNA deaminase toxin A-derived cytosine base editor (DdCBE) to develop disease models and...

Reproductive aging is associated with declining fertility and increasing inflammation, though these events are not well understood. An exciting new study in PLOS Biology utilizes cutting-edge technologies to characterize the role of multinucleated giant cells in ovarian aging.

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological data of populations living at moderate altitudes between 1,000 and 2,000 m suggest healthier aging when compared to people living in lower regions. Besides social determinants of health, lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors, environmental conditions such as ambient temperature, air pollution and aeroallergens, solar radiation and in particular hypobaric hypoxia may modify the risk of disease development and mortality. The present study was aimed at (1) evaluating...

Extensive research indicates that cognitive interventions can lead to a general improvement in cognitive functioning throughout the lifespan. In this study, we evaluate the causal evidence supporting this relationship in healthy older adults and older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by means of an umbrella meta-analysis of meta-analyses. The meta-analytic studies were identified through systematic searches in electronic databases (CINAHL, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus,...

BACKGROUND: Cognitive function declines with increasing age and maintaining high cognitive functioning especially at late life remains a challenging question to be addressed. Emerging evidence in the role of mushroom in promoting cognition has been produced from limited observational studies but there is a lack of definitive evidence on both longitudinal relationships from prospective cohort studies and clinical efficacy from clinical trials.

Many elderly listeners have difficulties with speech-in-noise perception, even if auditory thresholds in quiet are normal. The mechanisms underlying this compromised speech perception with age are still not understood. For identifying the physiological causes of these age-related speech perception difficulties, an appropriate animal model is needed enabling the use of invasive methods. In a comparative behavioral study, we used young-adult and quiet-aged Mongolian gerbils as well as young and...

CONCLUSION: The ferroptosis pathway, autophagy-animal pathway, apoptosis pathway, HIF-1 signaling pathway, and longevity-regulating pathway were identified as crucial pathways associated with ferroptosis in cerebral ischemic stroke. Bioinformatics analysis and RT-qPCR suggested that FTH1, SLC40A1, NRAS, CD82, and PTPN18 might serve as potential key targets underlying the antiferroptotic effects of acupuncture on ischemic stroke.

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CONCLUSION: Our complimentary word count and word co-occurrence language analyses of aging well construals revealed stark differences between YAs' and OAs' perceptions of aging well, which raise important questions about intergenerational exchanges and communications about aging more broadly. Further, we found that aging construals of OAs are useful for estimating their future outlook, an important aspect of resilience against cognitive decline and possible entry point for targeted precision...