An Effort to Compensate for the Age-Related Dysfunction of GABA Neurotransmission

There is plenty of evidence for progressive dysfunction in neurotransmission related to GABA to be important in forms of cognitive decline, particularly relating to memory. A number of approaches to treat this loss have been considered, with the one noted here the most recent of the type. Exactly why GABA-related dysfunction occurs in the brain is a matter for debate; as for so much of aging, there is no well-mapped line of cause and consequence leading from the fundamental damage that causes aging to the observed changes in cell behavior the aging brain. There are two approaches to dealing with this ignorance. The first is to repair the well-known forms of damage, and see what happens - the SENS rejuvenation biotechnology methodology. The second, far more popular, approach is to try to compensate for the late stage, downstream dysfunction in some way, without addressing the causes. This second strategy, the far worse strategy, describes near all of the development of medicine for age-related disease over the past century, and its dominance in the research community is why little progress has been made. There is nothing harder than trying to keep a damaged machine running without repairing the damage. Nonetheless, as capacities in biotechnology grow, these attempts do become incrementally better. It is still absolutely the wrong approach to the challenge, but people continue to be lured back in by the steady improvement in outcomes. Of course, given that most prior out...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs