This is the Brain on Age
As commonly known, in a mainly healthy person, the older we get, the more we age and our bodies change. When these changes occur, there’s a varying, but acceptable, range of age. But does the fact that you’re male or female affect the age of and type of change? Researchers Carl Cotman and Nicole Berchtold have found the answer to be yes. They found that men’s brains gene activity changer earlier than in women’s brains; and also that there are different genes affected.
These researchers from the University of California, Irvine, collected several brains of those deceased of the age of 20-99 and isolated the mRNA. They specifically looked at the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, postcentral gyrus, and the superior frontal gyrus sections of the brain.
As we know, mRNA carries codes in their genes to build proteins, and the more mRNA, the more active. As the brain ages, gene activity changes, and the sections these researchers predicted to have the most change (hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, because of their susceptibility to aging diseases), actually didn’t have much change. Also, these parts of the brain have the least amount of change in older people than in younger people.
After seeing variability in the 20-59 range and the 60-99 range in gene activity, they decided to look for gender differences. The intriguing piece of information found was that in men, genes in charge of energy are less active for the ages of 60-80, but at 80, gene activity stabilizes. This change occurs in women, but later on and the gene activity continues to decline. Also found in women, is that there is change in genes that control information exchange.
Though Cotman and Berchtold were examining healthy brains, this is still important, especially since it’s an understudied area, and also if something does go wrong, people are better informed of what could be affect what, and there can be preventative actions made.
This article was of interest to me because of our recent topic of sexual differentiation, and it led me to think about how/where this could fit into the process. I was also interested in learning about the difference in the aging process between males and females.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/36708/title/This_is_the_brain_on_age
These researchers from the University of California, Irvine, collected several brains of those deceased of the age of 20-99 and isolated the mRNA. They specifically looked at the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, postcentral gyrus, and the superior frontal gyrus sections of the brain.
As we know, mRNA carries codes in their genes to build proteins, and the more mRNA, the more active. As the brain ages, gene activity changes, and the sections these researchers predicted to have the most change (hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, because of their susceptibility to aging diseases), actually didn’t have much change. Also, these parts of the brain have the least amount of change in older people than in younger people.
After seeing variability in the 20-59 range and the 60-99 range in gene activity, they decided to look for gender differences. The intriguing piece of information found was that in men, genes in charge of energy are less active for the ages of 60-80, but at 80, gene activity stabilizes. This change occurs in women, but later on and the gene activity continues to decline. Also found in women, is that there is change in genes that control information exchange.
Though Cotman and Berchtold were examining healthy brains, this is still important, especially since it’s an understudied area, and also if something does go wrong, people are better informed of what could be affect what, and there can be preventative actions made.
This article was of interest to me because of our recent topic of sexual differentiation, and it led me to think about how/where this could fit into the process. I was also interested in learning about the difference in the aging process between males and females.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/36708/title/This_is_the_brain_on_age
posted by janellenf at 8:11 PM
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