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___ declines during normal aging
cognitive
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What types of cognitive skills are maintained with aging?
knowledge of vocabulary
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What happens to brain volume with age?
brain shrinks in volume, some loss of neurons, but more loss of myelin, dendrites, and synapses.
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What happens to the physiology of the synapses with age?
have fewer dendritic spines and branches. NMJ non-fxnl
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What can caloric restriction of old NMJs do?
help extend life span, help repair; increase innervation and sprouting of synapses
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How is synaptic plasticity affected with aging?
Synaptic plasticity is impaired which is tested with paired pulse facilitation and depression showing decrease activity of LTP and LTD in aged animals.
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Can aging synapses undergo plasticity?
yes, but at a lower rate compared to younger synapses.
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How does parabiosis help cognitive aging?
an old and young mice blood vessel are connected together, where the young mice diffuses rejuventing factors to old mouse and increasing neurogenesis of old mice.
a meaure of neurogenesis
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What is the rejuventing factor in parabiosis called?
GDF-11
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What are the four factors that GDF-11 affects/ reverse in aging?
- skeletal muscle rejuvenation
- greater blood flow
- neural stem cell proliferation
- enhanced olfaction
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What pathological changes in the brain lead to in elderly?
Dementia
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Define neurodengeration.
The loss of neurons and/or neuronal function
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What do Neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's, Prion amyloid plaques, ALS) have in common?
Protein aggregates
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What causes aggregation?
- Misfolded proteins creating soluble oligomers that become stacked beta sheets
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Amyloids are characterized by ___
- Beta sheets
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Why does protein aggregation contribute to neurodegeneration?
- Loss of fxn
- inflammation
- gain of toxic activity (apoptosis)
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What is a prion?
An infectious protein which lead to protein aggregation
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What did the first prion discovered cause?
spongiform encephalopathy (Mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob in human
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What are the two hypothesis for protein aggregates in the brain?
- Spread throughout the brain in a Prito-like mech
- have other factors that play (inflammation, etc) that affect some neurons before others
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