Transient Pockets of Hypoxia in the Mammalian Brain
Evidence suggests that the mammalian brain is operating at the very edge of its capacity, supplied with just enough oxygen and nutrients to barely get by. That exercise produces measurable short-term gains in cognitive function, while blood flow is increased, is one point in favor of this view. Another is provided here, in which researchers note that it is entirely normal to observe transient areas of hypoxia in the brain at rest, and that the occurrence of these regions is diminished by the increased blood flow of exercise. It is an open question as to what to do with this finding: we can imagine future technologies that ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 5, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Survey of MicroRNAs Shown to be Relevant to Muscle Aging
RNA molecules are produced in the cell nucleus by transcription machinery that reads gene sequences from the genome. MicroRNAs are among the varieties of RNA molecule that are not translated by a ribosome to produce proteins. Instead they directly participate in cell functions, often by altering the expression of other genes. Many microRNAs appear to be important players in the regulation of specific cell behaviors and tissue functions, such as regeneration and maintenance of tissues.
In today's open access paper, the authors provide an overview of some of the microRNAs that have been identified as important or pote...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Using mRNA to Generate Therapeutic Antibodies in the Brain
It may turn out to be cost-effective to replace delivery of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies with delivery of messenger RNA (mRNA), encapsulated in a lipid nanoparticle or linked to a cell penetrating molecule of some sort in order to reach the desired tissues and be taken up into the cytoplasm. Researchers here consider this in the context of treating Alzheimer's disease, where the primary thrust of therapeutic development involves the use of antibodies targeting the various protein aggregates thought to contribute to disease progression.
Monoclonal antibodies have emerged as a leading therapeutic agent for the ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Dephosphorylation-Targeting Chimeras to Clear Tau Aggregates in Alzheimer's Disease
Researchers here describe an interesting evolution of proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) technology into a form that upregulates the dephosphorylation of tau protein. Tau becomes pathogenic in the aging brain when hyperphosphorylated, and thus reducing it back to its unphosphorylated form should provide benefits to patients in tauopathies such as Alzheimer's disease. The PROTAC style of approach, when applied to this situation, is to produce a molecule capable of binding to phosphorylated tau at one end and a phosphatase at the other. By encouraging phosphatase molecules into close proximity to phosphorylated tau, the ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Will Medical Facial Recognition Technology (mFRT) Reawaken Eugenics?
By MIKE MAGEE
How comfortable is the FDA and Medical Ethics community with a new super-charged medical Facial Recognition Technology (mFRT) that claims it can “identify the early stages of autism in infants as young as 12 months?” That test already has a name -the RightEye GeoPref Autism Test. Its’ UC San Diego designer says it was 86% accurate in testing 400 infants and toddlers.
Or how about Face2Gene which claims its’ mFRT tool already has linked half of the known human genetic syndromes to “facial patterns?”
Or how about employers using mFRT facial and speech patterns to identify employees likely t...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 4, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Raised Inflammatory Markers Somewhat Correlate with Incidence of Age-Related Disease
Onset, progression, and resolution of inflammation are all driven by the interaction of many different complex signaling processes. The immune system as a whole is highly complex, an array of many different interacting populations of specialized cells. Nonetheless, there are a few individual circulating signal proteins that, to some degree at least, tend to reflect overall inflammatory status. Not reliably, but enough to produce correlations in patient populations of any reasonable size.
Today's open access paper is a survey of the literature on inflammatory cytokines IL-6, TNF, and IL-1β, pulling reported measures...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
In Other Words: What Being Unionized Means for Molecules
Did you know that molecules can be unionized? But it doesn’t mean they form a labor union. In chemistry, unionized (pronounced “un-ionized”) is the opposite of ionized, which means “electrically charged.”
Credit: NIGMS.
Unionized molecules don’t have electrical charges because they have the same number of electrons and protons. Ionized molecules, also called ions, become charged by gaining or losing electrons. Ions with extra electrons, known as anions, have a negative charge. Ions with fewer electrons than normal, called cations, have a positive charge.
Unionization’s Impacts
A molecule’s c...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - April 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Tools and Techniques In Other Words Source Type: blogs
Reversing Myeloid Bias by Selective Destruction of Hematopoietic Cells
The hematopoietic cell populations of the bone marrow are responsible for producing red blood cells and immune cells. With advancing age, the production of immune cells shifts to bias myeloid cells of the innate immune system versus lymphocyte cells of the adaptive immune system. This is thought to be an important aspect of immune aging. Researchers here attempt to reverse this myeloid bias in immune cell production by selectively destroying some of the myeloid-focused hematopoietic cells, an interesting idea. The results are positive and intriguing.
During aging, the number of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Arguing the Primacy of Predation in Determining Species Longevity
Researchers here review a variety of species and conclude that defense against predation is the most important determinant of species longevity. Long-lived species tend to have shells, or fly, or live underground. Evolution will not favor longevity until other factors reduce extrinsic mortality at the hands of predators. After that, proximate biochemical causes of longevity can come into play in what looks to be a wide variety of ways.
Various environmental morphological and behavioral factors can determine the longevity of representatives of various taxa. Long-lived species develop systems aimed at increasing org...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A View of Type 2 Diabetes as Accelerated Aging
The mortality characteristics resulting from type 2 diabetes look very much like an accelerated form of normal aging, as noted in today's open access paper reporting on a large epidemiological study. This mortality characteristic is so much like aging that at times in the past researchers have used animal models of type 2 diabetes as stand-ins for aging, in order to conduct studies more rapidly. Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disease, a condition that usually arises from excess fat tissue, and is characterized by chronic inflammation, excessive blood sugar, high levels of circulating advanced glycation end-products, and ot...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 2, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Chronic Pain Accelerates Brain Aging, Perhaps via Inflammation
A range of conditions produce chronic pain in muscle and skeletal tissue. While conditions such as osteoathritis are comparatively well understood, the etiology of chronic muscular pain disorders such as myofascial pain syndrome is poorly understood and treatment options are consequently limited. Here, researchers analyze available epidemiological data on knee osteoarthritis, and show that it suggests an inflammatory link between chronic pain and an accelerated pace of degenerative brain aging.
Individuals suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) may face a higher high risk of brain aging. CMP is a leadin...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 2, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Lewy Body Disease May Be More Common than Thought
Access to human brain tissue for medical research is more limited than most people realize is the case, and, for obvious reasons, far too little of the available tissue data covers the early stages of disease. This limitation is one of the factors slowing the pace of research into age-related neurodegenerative conditions. Here, for example, researchers make use of an unusual resource to show that the prevalence of Lewy body disease may be greater than presently thought, with pathology beginning in the 50s, even if there are no outright symptoms of disease at that stage.
Lewy body disease is the second most common ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 2, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Stem Cell Secretome Treatment Improves Measures of Health in Old Mice
In this study, we tested a stem cell secretome product, which contains extracellular vesicles and growth factors, cytoskeletal remodeling factors, and immunomodulatory factors. We examined the effects of 4 weeks of 2×/week unilateral intramuscular secretome injections (quadriceps) in ambulatory aged male C57BL/6 mice (22-24 months) compared to saline-injected aged-matched controls.
Secretome delivery substantially increased whole-body lean mass and decreased fat mass, corresponding to higher myofiber cross-sectional area and smaller adipocyte size, respectively. Secretome-treated mice also had greater whole-bod...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 1, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Efferocytosis in the Context of Aging and Age-Related Disease
There is something of a tradition in the aging research community of writing reviews that attempt to summarize everything that is known of a single specific cellular behavior in the context of the panoply of cell and tissue dysfunction observed in aging. Today it is the turn of efferocytosis, the clearance of dying cells and their immediate debris by phagocytes such as macrophages of the innate immune system. It is fairly straightforward to mount an argument to suggest that more efficient efferocytosis is a good thing, as unwanted consequences attend the presence of lingering cell corpses cluttering up tissue. Like autopha...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 1, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Reversal of Markers of Aging in Cells Following Small Molecule Partial Reprogramming
Partial reprogramming by exposure to Yamanaka factors resets many of the epigenetic changes characteristic of cells in aged tissue. This is a potential approach to the production of future rejuvenation therapies. At present, some research groups are attempting to move away from genetic interventions to find small molecules that can provoke reprogramming. There are some avenues that seem promising. Here, researchers assess the effects of partial reprogramming by small molecules on a range of omics data and functional parameters for cells, finding that the outcomes are much as one would expect for a successful protocol.
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Source: Fight Aging! - April 1, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
