A Senior Moment or Is it Something Worse?

Hurray. Two recent studies provide strong evidence that age-related memory loss is a syndrome in its own right and not necessarily an early sign of dementia or Alzheimer’s.

There is an area in the brain called the dentate gyrus which is not affected by Alzheimer’s or dementia but whose function declines with age. They found a protein call RbAp48 which diminishes with age. In a series of studies in mice, the research revealed that older mice with signs of memory impairment also showed evidence of a decline in RbAp48. But when levels of RbAp48 were artificially boosted to levels comparable to those of young mice, the memory performance of the older mice returned to youthful levels. In the Aug. 28, 2013 edition of Science Translation Medicine where this all was reported, there was a suggestions that finding ways to increase RbAp48 in the brains of older humans might improve memory performance in people experiencing 1ge-related memory decline.

If this happens, we will have to have a lottery to see who gets the boosts first. I’m afraid there will be rioting in the streets and it will rival any Super Bowl fracases you’ve ever seen