Fundamental brain differences between normal aging and pathological aging

by time news

2023-06-02 14:45:09

The brain undergoes changes in its structure and function as people age, which can influence the ability to relate to others. Social impoverishment has been identified as an important factor that decreases life expectancy and, in addition, it is an indicator of the appearance of dementia and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. New research has revealed the extent to which there are fundamental brain differences between normal aging and pathological aging.

In Spain, the synaptic neuromodulation group of the Institute of Neurosciences (IN), a joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Miguel Hernández University (UMH), has studied social behavior in aged rodents in a normal way and in a animal model of Alzheimer’s disease.

Despite the fact that social interaction plays a central role in maintaining general well-being, there has been a notable lack of knowledge about the mechanisms by which aging could alter the processing of social information, whether due to normal or pathological causes.

Adrián Portalés, Pablo Chamero and Sandra Jurado carried out experiments to determine the time that different individuals invested in exploring a space with an object, with a known individual and with a new congener. This allowed them to analyze their general level of sociability, as well as their ability to react to social novelty. And they were able to verify that all the aged individuals, either by the normal process or by Alzheimer’s disease, spent more time exploring the place where there was another congener than in the area with an object. However, the researchers detected that there was less interaction with new individuals, especially in those mice affected by pathological aging.

The brain undergoes changes in its structure and function as time passes and people age. The illustration is a symbolic artistic representation of the concept of the passage of time in a neuron. (Image: Amazings/NCYT)

the vomeronasal organ

To delve into the causes of this lack of interest in new individuals, scientists from the Institute of Neurosciences analyzed the properties of the vomeronasal organ in the rodents involved in the study. “The vomeronasal organ, located in the septum of the nose, is essential for the detection of pheromones in most mammalian species, and although in humans it is considered a vestigial organ, in mice, this organ is the gateway to stimuli that determine such important social behaviors as mate selection or the recognition of offspring”, explains Sandra Jurado, who directs the Synaptic Neuromodulation group at the Institute of Neurosciences.

During the analysis of cell regeneration, the study authors identified that, as expected, normal aging reduces the ability of the vomeronasal organ to regenerate. This indicates that older animals have less ability to distinguish olfactory signals, such as pheromones. Surprisingly, no changes were found in the vomeronasal organ in the Alzheimer’s mouse models, despite the fact that they did not interact normally with new partners.

The development of neurodegenerative diseases often leads to deficits in social behavior and, these results suggest, may not be a direct consequence of loss of sensory abilities, as occurs during normal aging, but may stem from more profound changes related to behavior. social information processing.

“People suffering from neurodegenerative diseases present frequent episodes of aggressiveness, apathy and social isolation, which greatly reduces their quality of life and that of their caregivers. For this reason, it is extremely important to understand the changes that the brain undergoes in its structure and function as it ages, and what processes could be related to premature or pathological aging”, points out Jurado. This study provides new information on the different mechanisms involved in both types of aging, which are potential targets for action for the development of future therapeutic interventions.

The study is titled “Natural and Pathological Aging Distinctively Impacts the Pheromone Detection System and Social Behavior.” And it has been published in the academic journal Molecular Neurobiology. (Source: UMH / CSIC)

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