BDNF is Important in Muscle Function, Not Just in Brain Function

BDNF levels decline with age. Much of the focus on BDNF has been its role in neurogenesis in the brain. Interventions such as exercise and reversing (or compensating for) the aging of the gut microbiome can boost BDNF levels and cognitive function in animal studies. For a different view on the relevance of BDNF, researchers here report on their investigations of the role of BDNF in muscle tissue, finding that it can upregulate the mitochondrial quality control mechanism of mitophagy, improving muscle function. They also note that obesity can harm muscle tissue function by reducing BDNF levels and thereby causing a loss of mitochondrial function. This work is perhaps a good reason to pay more attention to some of the known ways to upregulate BDNF as a basis for therapies. A decline in metabolism and endurance of skeletal muscle is commonly observed in obese patients, but the underlying mechanism is not well-understood. Researchers developed a special obesified mouse model by removing the gene of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) exclusively in their skeletal muscle. BDNF is originally identified as an important growth factor for maintaining the survival and activities of neurons. Recent studies have proposed that BDNF is also a muscle-secreted protein (i.e., myokine), but its physiological significance is unknown. Researchers found that obesity reduced the amount of BDNF in the skeletal muscle of mice. They also observed that the mice without BDNF in the...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs