What We Know — and Don’t Know — About Aging. Our best insights into how the normal brain ages come from long-term studies of the nervous system that began decades ago.
Our best insights into how the normal brain ages come
from long-term studies of the nervous system that began decades ago. These are
just now bearing results. Coupled with these long-term studies, modern
technological advances now make it possible to explore the structure and
function of the living brain in more depth than ever before and to ask
questions about what actually happens in its aging cells.
We now know that the brain reaches its maximum weight
near age 20, and subtle changes in the brain’s chemistry and structure begin at
midlife for most people. During a lifetime, the brain is at risk for losing
some of its neurons, but normal aging does not result in widespread neuron
loss. This distinguishes normal aging from the neurodegenerative changes that
occurs as part of the disease process in Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease or
after a stroke.
Brain tissue can respond to damage or loss of neurons in
several ways. The remaining healthy neurons are able to expand their dendrites
and fine-tune their connections with other neurons. If the cell body of the
neuron remains intact, a damaged brain neuron can readjust by inducing changes
in its axon and dendrites.
Unlike damaged skin or liver, however, a damaged brain
cannot respond with a robust generation of new neurons. Relatively small stem
cell populations remain in a healthy adult brain, but our current knowledge
suggests that they contribute to only a few of the many different types of
neurons found, and these neuron types are found in only a few regions of the
normal brain. Compounding the problem is the fact that the number of even these
stem cells declines as part of the aging process.
[image source: flicker]
(see stunning facts of brain here)
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