Why does the brain age? The answer is in the genes
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п»ї<title>Why does the brain age? The answer is in the genes</title>

The brain ages in the same way as do all the structures and systems of our body. However, there are people who seem to be more affected by the passage of time than others; not only in their physique, but also in their abilities. Why does this happen? What can we do about it? Are some people more prone to aging or do we have tools to slow down the effects of the passing years?
It seems that the answers to unravel the mystery of brain aging lie in certain genes. A group of researchers from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge (UK) and the Sapienza University in Rome (Italy) have found the answers by delving into the genetic gears that influence the complex mechanism of age-related cognitive decline.
The truth is that we already know a good part of what happens when the brain ages. For example, it is known that neurons deteriorate and die, only to be replaced by new ones. This process is facilitated by a type of stem cell, neural stem cells (NSCs). These are cells of the nervous system that can self-regenerate and give rise to progenitor cells.
However, over time, these cells become less functional, which makes our brains less functional as well. But what causes these cells to age, and what exactly are the molecular changes that are responsible for their deterioration? These are the questions that researchers have found answers to.
Before we look at why the brain ages, let's look at what brain aging is all about. Brain aging is inevitable to some extent, although not uniform. In fact, it affects all brains, but in different ways. Slowing down brain aging or stopping it altogether would be the best elixir to achieve eternal youth.
The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons interconnected through trillions of synapses. Throughout our lifetime, our brain changes more than any other part of our body. From the time the brain begins to develop in the third week of gestation until old age, its complex structures and functions are changing.
During the first years of life, a child's brain forms more than one million new neural connections per second. The size of the brain increases fourfold in the preschool period and by age 6 reaches approximately 90 percent of the adult volume.
The frontal lobes, which are the areas of the brain responsible for executive functions (such as planning, working memory and impulse control), are among the last areas of the brain to mature. In fact, they may not be fully developed until the age of 35.
But at a certain point, we begin to age. As we age, all of our body systems gradually decline in their ability to perform, including the brain. Thus, certain changes in memory are associated with normal aging.
Common memory changes that are associated with normal aging include:
Difficulty learning something new: memorizing new information may take longer.
Difficulty multitasking: slow processing may make it difficult to process and plan parallel tasks.
Difficulty remembering names and numbers: the strategic memory that helps memorize names and numbers begins to decline in the 20s.
Difficulty remembering appointments.
While some studies show that one-third of older people have difficulty with declarative memory (memories of facts or events that have been stored and can be retrieved), other studies indicate that one-fifth of people in their 70s perform cognitive tests as well as those in their 20s.
General changes identified during brain aging would include:
Brain mass. Shrinkage in the frontal lobe and hippocampus (areas involved in higher cognitive function and encoding of new memories). Changes begin around age 60 or 70.
Cortical density. Thinning of the outer surface of the sulcus due to decreased synaptic connections. Fewer connections may contribute to slower cognitive processing.
White matter. White matter consists of myelinated nerve fibers that bundle into tracts and transmit nerve signals between brain cells. Myelin is believed to shrink with age and, as a result, slows processing and reduces cognitive function.
Neurotransmitter systems. Researchers suggest that the brain generates fewer chemical messengers with aging, and it is this decreased activity of dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin and norepinephrine that may play a role in decreased memory and cognition and an increase in depression.
The role of genes as the brain agesNow that we know what happens as the brain ages, let's go back to the study we mentioned at the beginning to look at the role of genes in this process. It appears, the researchers suggest, that the Dbx2 gene may explain brain aging.
The researchers compared genetic changes in neural stem/progenitor cells (NSPCs) from old (18-month-old) and young (3-month-old) mice. In doing so, they identified more than 250 genes that changed their behavior over time, meaning that these genes are likely to cause the indicated cells to malfunction.
Once they narrowed their search to 250 genes, the scientists noticed that increased activity of a gene called Dbx2 appeared to change aging NSPCs. They performed in vivo and in vitro assays that revealed that increased activity in this gene in young NSPCs makes them behave more like old stem cells. Increased Dbx2 activity prevented NSPCs from growing or proliferating as young cells do.
In addition, in older NSPCs, the researchers identified changes in epigenetic marks that may explain why the stem cells can deteriorate over time. If we think of our DNA as an alphabet, epigenetic marks are like accents and punctuation marks, telling our cells whether and how to read genes. In this research, scientists discovered how these marks are placed differently in the genome, "telling" NSPCs that they should grow more slowly.
With this study, the researchers have shown that these changes may contribute to brain aging by slowing down the brain renewal process. The researchers are hopeful that these findings will one day lead to the reversal of the aging process. By understanding how aging affects the brain, at least in mice, the researchers hope to identify ways to detect neural stem cell decline.
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