Neuro Topics - Aging
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May 9, 2024
Just talking to other people can stimulate different brain functions among socially isolated older adults, even when the interactions are internet-based, according to a new clinical trial out of Massachusetts General Hospital.
Original article in: The Gerontologist >
March 14, 2024
Brain tissue samples from people with schizophrenia and from older adults have strikingly similar sets of changes in gene activity in two types of brain cells, suggesting a common biological basis for the cognitive impairment often seen in people with schizophrenia and in older people, according to new research from Steve McCarroll, Sabina Berretta, and colleagues. First author Emi Ling.
Original article in: Nature >
March 14, 2024
Menopause has long been thought to cause psychological distress, but a new review suggests that this is not always the case. Hadine Joffe and colleagues found no evidence that menopause universally caused a rise in risk of mental health conditions—including depressive symptoms, major depressive disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and psychosis—across all women.
Original article in: The Lancet >
September 13, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Sharon K. Inouye and colleagues from Harvard Medical School and Hebrew SeniorLife, pinpointing several risk factors that contributed to older adults’ likelihood of experiencing loneliness, including older age, inability to complete daily activities, vision impairment, depression, and anxiety.
June 16, 2023
Harvard Gazette Q+A with JoAnn Manson, who along with Howard Sesso, co-led a collaboration between BWH and HSPH called the the COSMOS-Web Study. This study showed that among 3,500 subjects 60 and older, a daily multivitamin led to 3.1 years less cognitive aging than for those assigned a placebo. This clinical study was the second cognition trial in COSMOS to suggest that multivitamins can slow memory loss.
March 31, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Brad Manor and colleagues, co-first authors Junhong Zhou and Gabriele Cattaneo, finding that that the ability to dual-task when walking starts to decline by the age of 55, up to a decade before old age, as traditionally defined by the threshold of 65 years.
Original article in: Lancet Healthy Longevity >
March 31, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Sharon K Inouye and colleagues suggesting that delirium — the most common postoperative complication in older adults — is associated with a 40 percent faster rate of cognitive decline in those who develop delirium over those who do not.
Original article in: JAMA Internal Medicine >
February 23, 2023
In order for neurons to be ‘plastic’ and adapt in response to environmental stimuli, they must undergo rapid changes in gene expression. Sometimes these rapid changes can lead to DNA damage. Daniel Gilliam and Elizabeth Pollina of the Greenberg lab describe their discovery of a DNA repair pathway that neurons use to address this challenge.
Original article in: Nature >
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Frank J. Slack, Maria Mavrikaki (co-first author with Jonathan lee) and colleagues, finding for the first time the molecular signatures of brain aging in patients with severe COVID-19.
Original article in: Nature Aging >
January 25, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from the labs of Xiaowei Zhuang and Catherine Dulac, first author William E. Allen. They used the imaging method MERFISH to examine the relationship between inflammation and cognitive impairment as we age. Their results suggest this may be due to a cellular chain reaction.
Original article in: Cell >
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Tamara Fong, Sharon Inouye, and colleagues, finding that the modified and extended version of the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP-ME), a well-established and highly successful delirium prevention program, is both feasible and acceptable to hospital staff and patients.
June 15, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Charles Czeisler and colleagues, first author Jeanne F Duffy, showing that administering a 5 mg dose of melatonin increased total sleep time compared to a placebo in a small group of healthy adults aged 55 and older.
June 15, 2022
Boston Children's Hospital Answer article on new research from Christopher A. Walsh and colleagues, co-first authors August Yue Huang and Michael B. Miller, revealing that that people with Alzheimer’s have an abundance of newly acquired mutations in their neurons — more than people of the same age without Alzheimer’s, and enough to disable genes important to brain function.
Original article in: Nature >
August 11, 2021
Harvard MCB News article on new research from the labs of Jeff Lichtman, Aravi Samuel, Mei Zhen (U Toronto) and colleagues, first author Daniel Witvliet, reconstructing the full brain of eight isogenic Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate how it changes with age.
Original article in: Nature >
April 14, 2021
Meher Juttukonda and David Salat share new research on how brain perfusion changes over the lifespan using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from the Human Connectome Aging Project. These findings could be important for understanding markers of healthy aging and vascular underpinnings of age-related lesions that are frequently observed in dementia.
Original article in: Neuroimage >
April 8, 2021
Closer to Truth interview with Robert Stickgold where he discusses his new book and his newest findings on sleep and dreams.
Original article in: Neuroimage >
April 8, 2021
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
Original article in: Neuroimage >
September 23, 2020
Harvard Gazette article on new machine learning models that are able to predict how much time aging mice have left from David Sinclair and colleagues, co-first authors Michael B. Schultz, Alice E. Kane. Also featured in HMS News.
Original article in: Nature Communications >
July 8, 2020
New research from the Stress and Development and Somerville labs demonstrate important differences in the way behavior is flexibly adjusted in the presence of reward from adolescence to young adulthood.
July 1, 2020
Harvard Medicine Magazine article sharing the perspectives of Xavier du Maine and four other HMS students on how the 2020 pandemic has affected their lives and research.
July 1, 2020
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
October 16, 2019
New research from the labs of Bruce Yanker and colleagues, co-first authors Joseph Zullo and Derek Drake, shows that neural activity emerges as a factor in longevity.
Original article in: Nature >
August 23, 2018
HMS News article on a recent study from the labs of Junying Yuan, Bruce Yankner and colleagues identifying the molecular link between aging and neurodegeneration.
Original article in: Cell >