Age-related cognitive impairment may be caused by a Mitochondria Power Supply Failure
The brain is like a puzzle, which requires many pieces that are interdependent and nested. The brain is divided up into different areas. Each area contains millions of neurons that are connected by thousands of synapses. These synapses that enable communication between neurons are dependent on smaller structures, including message-sending dendrites, message-receiving boutons, and power-generating mitochondria. All these pieces are necessary to create a coherent brain.
In the aging brain these pieces may be lost or changed, and they no longer fit into the larger brain puzzle. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience has published a research study on this topic.
Courtney Glavis Bloom, senior staff scientist at the Salk Institute and co-first-author of the study, says that 50% of people lose their working memory as they age. This means that their ability to manipulate and hold information on a short-term basis decreases. We set out to discover why some people maintain healthy working memories as they age while others don’t. We discovered a novel synaptic mechanism that underlies cognitive impairment.
Source:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-mitochondria-power-failure-age-related-cognitive.html
