Switching Off One Crucial Protein Appears to Reverse Brain Aging in Mice

A protein called ferritin light chain 1 (FTL1) may play a significant role in brain aging, a new study reveals, giving scientists a new target for understanding and potentially preventing brain deterioration and disease.

FTL1 was brought to light through a careful comparison of the hippocampus part of the brain in mice of different ages. The hippocampus is involved in memory and learning, and it is one of the regions that suffers most from age-related decline.

The study team found that FLT1 was the one protein in this region that old mice had more of and young mice had less of.

The work was led by a team from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the researchers are hopeful that their findings will enlighten human treatments for neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease.

"Our data raise the exciting possibility that the beneficial effects of targeting neuronal FTL1 at old age may extend more broadly, beyond cognitive aging, to neurodegenerative disease conditions in older people," write the researchers in their published paper.

FTL1 is known to be related to storing iron in the body, but hasn't come up in relation to brain aging before. To test its involvement after their initial findings, the researchers used genetic editing to overexpress the protein in young mice, and reduce its level in old mice.

The results were clear: the younger mice showed signs of impaired memory and learning abilities, as if they were getting old before their time, while in the older mice there were signs of restored cognitive function – some of the brain aging was effectively reversed.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, this has only been demonstrated in mouse models, and there's a lot of work to do before this can be confirmed in people, but the early signs are promising when it comes to keeping older brains in a healthier state.

"It is truly a reversal of impairments," says biomedical scientist Saul Villeda, from UCSF. "It's much more than merely delaying or preventing symptoms."

Further tests on cells in petri dishes showed how FTL1 stopped neurons from growing properly, with neural wires lacking the branching structures that typically provide links between nerve cells and improve brain connectivity.

From the analysis carried out by the researchers, it seems that increased FTL1 may interfere with the mitochondria that act as the power stations of our cells. Mitochondria are closely linked to aging – it's as if they're light bulbs that get dimmer and dimmer as we get older.

Part of the difficulty in studying aging is picking apart which changes in the body are the result of aging, and which changes might be driving it. Through the collection of tests run here, it seems FTL1 is one of those drivers – at least in the hippocampuses of mice.

Future research can now look at how this might be applied to people, and possibly neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It's also going to be important to find out more about how FTL1 affects the brain, and what the full set of consequences of limiting it might be.

"We're seeing more opportunities to alleviate the worst consequences of old age," says Villeda. "It's a hopeful time to be working on the biology of aging."

The research has been published in Nature Aging.

 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  

https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    

https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement

https://GSiyers home remedies.blogspot.com   is the latest addition to my blogs

 

Neuroscientists Reveal How the Brain Selectively Remembers New Places

When you enter a room, your brain is bombarded with sensory information. If the room is a place you know well, most of this information is already stored in long-term memory. However, if the room is unfamiliar to you, your brain creates a new memory of it almost immediately.

MIT neuroscientists have now discovered how this occurs. A small region of the brainstem, known as the locus coeruleus, is activated in response to novel sensory stimuli, and this activity triggers the release of a flood of dopamine into a certain region of the hippocampus to store a memory of the new location.

“We have the remarkable ability to memorize some specific features of an experience in an entirely new environment, and such ability is crucial for our adaptation to the constantly changing world,” says Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience and director of the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

“This study opens an exciting avenue of research into the circuit mechanism by which behaviorally relevant stimuli are specifically encoded into long-term memory, ensuring that important stimuli are stored preferentially over incidental ones,” adds Tonegawa, the senior author of the study.

Akiko Wagatsuma, a former MIT research scientist, is the lead author of the study. 

New places
In a study published about 15 years ago, Tonegawa’s lab found that a part of the hippocampus called the CA3 is responsible for forming memories of novel environments. They hypothesized that the CA3 receives a signal from another part of the brain when a novel place is encountered, stimulating memory formation.

They believed this signal to be carried by chemicals known as neuromodulators, which influence neuronal activity. The CA3 receives neuromodulators from both the locus coeruleus (LC) and a region called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which is a key part of the brain’s reward circuitry. The researchers decided to focus on the LC because it has been shown to project to the CA3 extensively and to respond to novelty, among many other functions.

The LC responds to an array of sensory input, including visual information as well as sound and odor, then sends information on to other brain areas, including the CA3. To uncover the role of LC-CA3 communication, the researchers genetically engineered mice so that they could block the neuronal activity between those regions by shining light on neurons that form the connection.

To test the mice’s ability to form new memories, the researchers placed the mice in a large open space that they had never seen before. The next day, they placed them in the same space again. Mice whose LC-CA3 connections were not disrupted spent much less time exploring the space on the second day, because the environment was already familiar to them. However, when the researchers interfered with the LC-CA3 connection during the first exposure to the space, the mice explored the area on the second day just as much as they had on the first. This suggests that they were unable to form a memory of the new environment.

The LC appears to exert this effect by releasing the neuromodulator dopamine into the CA3 region, which was surprising because the LC is known to be a major source of norepinephrine to the hippocampus. The researchers believe that this influx of dopamine helps to boost CA3’s ability to strengthen synapses and form a memory of the new location.

They found that this mechanism was not required for other types of memory, such as memories of fearful events, but appears to be specific to memory of new environments. The connections between the LC and CA3 are necessary for long-term spatial memories to form in CA3.

“The selectivity of successful memory formation has long been a puzzle,” says Richard Morris, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the research. 

“This study goes a long way toward identifying the brain mechanisms of this process. Activity in the pathway between the locus coeruleus and CA3 occurs most strongly during novelty, and it seems that activity fixes the representations of everyday experience, helping to register and retain what’s been happening and where we’ve been.”

Choosing to remember
This mechanism likely evolved as a way to help animals survive, allowing them to remember new environments without wasting brainpower on recording places that are already familiar, the researchers say.

“When we are exposed to sensory information, we unconsciously choose what to memorize. For an animal’s survival, certain things are necessary to be remembered, and other things, familiar things, probably can be forgotten,” Wagatsuma says.

Still unknown is how the LC recognizes that an environment is new. The researchers hypothesize that some part of the brain is able to compare new environments with stored memories or with expectations of the environment, but more studies are needed to explore how this might happen.

“That’s the next big question,” Tonegawa says. “Hopefully new technology will help to resolve that.”

The research was funded by the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the JPB Foundation.
 This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement 

Recent Research Shows Dancing May Reverse Signs of Aging

As we start to get older, the signs of aging become increasingly apparent, but there are many ways to combat them, and dancing might just be the best one ! While some of these signs may only be aesthetic like the wrinkling of one's skin or the greying of one's hair, others can be far more disruptive. Old age may rear its weary head in the form of true physical discomfort, like weakened bones, loss of balance, memory and other forms of physical and mental impairment. 
These can be made worse by pre-existing or developing conditions like arthritis or Alzheimer's Disease. This study, conducted by a team of researchers in a University in Germany, has determined that you may be able to reduce the effects of aging through the art of dance. 
The Role of the Hippocampus...

One major observation that had been established prior to the study was the effects of aging on the hippocampus, the portion of the human brain that regulates emotions, memory, motor functions, and the central nervous system. However, it was also noted that despite the continuous damage that occurs to the hippocampus over time, it remains one of the few portions of the brain that continues to generate new neurons throughout the entirety of one’s lifespan. This ability of the hippocampus to continually form synaptic connections is termed as neuroplasticity.  

Numerous previous studies looked into the possibility of physiological activities acting as mediators for neuroplasticity in the hippocampus. While studies on animals showed that any physical activity can be a mediator for the creation of neurons, the studies dealing with the human physiology focused specifically on the effects of aerobic fitness and training. Various studies delved into the connection between cardio-respiratory fitness and the volume of the hippocampus. While some studies noted a positive correlation between the two, others failed to find any correlation at all.
Moving Forward...
Keeping in mind the uncertainty surrounding this correlation between cardio-respiratory exercise and the improved condition of the hippocampus, this study took a step further. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that performs many functions for the body, which were divided into 5 specified sub-fields for the purpose of the study. These sub-fields included working memory and spatial relations, i.e., coordination and learning.
This team of researchers followed the lead of a previous study that noted the positive effects of dynamic balance training on the volume of gray matter in the hippocampus in healthy seniors. Dancing was, therefore, determined to be a possible viable form of exercise to reduce impairment caused to the hippocampus caused by aging, as it would stimulate the use of numerous sensory organs.
The Focus of the Study...

The study, conducted by experts from a variety of departments in the Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany, was a comparative analysis of the effects of two major types of motor fitness: dancing and endurance training. A group of volunteers was selected, having an average age of 68 years. They were divided into two groups, one of which was assigned endurance fitness and the other to be instructed in dancing.
Weekly classes were held over 18 months. The endurance exercises included cycling and Nordic walking among others. The other group was instructed in a variety of dance forms like jazz, square, line, and Latin American dancing. Different routines were taught every few weeks, making an important part of the exercise the challenge to recall the steps. 

The Final Result...
Both forms of exercise were found to have positive effects on the hippocampus. The volunteers that participated in the dance showed a significant increase in memory and balance. When measuring hippocampus volumes, it was observed that there was an increase in 4 out 5 subfields, 1 in particular that the endurance fitness routine did not affect. While improvement in memory could be attributed to an increase in hippocampus volumes, no physical correlation could be found between the improvement in the hippocampus and the improved balance of the members of the dance group. 
While balance may not be directly related to the hippocampus, it is nonetheless a positive side effect of the practice of dancing. Dancing has the same benefits as cardio-respiratory and endurance exercises, as well as a few others in slowing down age-related impairments in elderly persons. The combination of music, movement, coordination, and memory has been seen to be extremely beneficial to the body and mind for anyone looking to live a healthy life.   

this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement                

Here's how memories form and fade

Researchers have identified the neural processes that make some memories fade rapidly while other memories persist over time.

Using mouse models, researchers determined that strong, stable memories are encoded by " teams" of neurons all firing in synchrony, providing redundancy that enables these memories to persist over time.

The research has implications for understanding how memory might be affected after brain damage, such as by strokes or Alzheimer's disease, reported the study.

Led by postdoctoral scholar, the team developed a test to examine mice's neural activity as they learn about and remember a new place.

In a test, a mouse was placed in a straight enclosure, about 5 feet long with white walls. Unique symbols marked different locations along the walls- for e.g., a bold plus sign near the right-most end and an angled slash near the center.

Sugar water ( a treat for mice) was placed at either end of the track. While the mouse explored, the researchers measured the activity of specific neurons in the mouse hippocampus (the region of the brain where new memories are formed) that are known to encode for places.

When an animal was initially placed in the track, it was unsure of what to do and wandered left and right until it came across the sugar water. In these cases, single neurons were activated when the mouse took notice of a symbol on the wall.

But over multiple experiences with the track, the mouse became familiar with it and remembered the locations of the sugar. As the mouse became more familiar, more and more neurons were activated in synchrony by seeing each symbol on the wall. Essentially, the mouse was recognising where it was with respect to each unique symbol.

To study how memories fade over time, the researchers then withheld the mice from the track for up to 20 days.

Upon returning to the track after this break, mice that had formed strong memories encoded by higher numbers of neurons remembered the task quickly.

Even though some neurons showed different activity, the mouse's memory of the track was clearly identifiable when analysing the activity of large groups of neurons.

In other words, using groups of neurons enable the brain to have redundancy and still recall memories even if some of the original neurons fall silent or are damaged.

Imgaine you've a long and complicated story to tell. In order to preserve the story, you could tell it to 5 of your friends and then occasionally get together with all of them to re-tell the story and help each other fill in any gaps that an individual had forgotten. Additionally, each time you re-tell the story, you could bring new friends to learn and therefore help preserve it and strengthen the memory. In an analogous way, your own neurons help each other out to encode memories that will persist over time, he explained.

Memory is so fundamental to human behaviour that any impairment to memory can severely impact our daily life. Memory loss that occurs as part of normal aging can be a significant handicap for senior citizens.

Moreover, memory loss caused by several disease, most notably Alzheimer's, has devastating consequences that can interfere with the most basic routines including recognising relatives or remembering the way back home. 


This work suggested that memories might fade more rapidly as we age because memory is encoded by fewer neurons, and if any of these neurons fail, the memory is lost.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                                                FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                       https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                     FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                   

                                https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com