Gerontology ePosters

The balance between neural excitation and inhibition (E/I) is crucial for cognitive functions such as memory formation and retrieval. Disruptions in E/I balance are implicated in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD), where neuronal hyperexcitation has been observed. We present a novel multimodal…

Driving is a complex task that requires effective neural processing and coordination, which typically degrade with age. Previous studies suggest that age-related differences in cognitive and motor functions might influence driving performance. Herein, we investigated age-related differences in neural responses to…

Ageism, discrimination based on age, and aging anxiety, fear of aging, pose significant barriers to health equity within communities. In this study, we aim to examine ageism and aging anxiety in Egypt and identify factors associated with ageism among Egyptians. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey involving…

The proportion of aged individuals in the general population is increasing, and non-communicable diseases like obesity are major contributors to mortality in older individuals. The WNIN/Ob obese rat exhibits a significantly reduced average lifespan of 15 months. Exploring molecular and biochemical characteristics of…

Brain ageing in mice leads to the progressive appearance of degenerative granular structures frequently referred to as “PAS granules” because of their positive staining with periodic acid-Schiff (PAS). It has been reported that these granules contain neo-epitopes that can be recognised by natural IgM auto-antibodies,…

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder characterized by early decline in episodic and spatial memory, associated with accumulation of brain markers. Intriguingly, despite similar levels of brain alteration, some elderly subjects show less cognitive impairment than others. To explain…

The liver, responsible for regulating the metabolism of the body; the kidney, the most important organ for waste elimination, and the spleen, in charge of filtering the blood and producing lymphocytes, are now considered to have clearance functions in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) eliminating Aβ from the brain. In the…

Considering the difficulty in finding a reversible cure for dementia, research and clinical focus have shifted towards modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline, with sleep disturbances gaining attention especially in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Given the significant impact of sleep…

Healthy brain activity relies on the presence of key astrocytic proteins: the excitatory amino acid transporters (EAAT1/2), inwardly rectifying K+ channel (Kir4.1), aquaporin-4 (AQP4) among others. In the aging cortex, we report a novel phenotype of individual, sparse, non-reactive astrocytes with unchanged…

Normal aging is characterized by a decline in several cognitive faculties, including the ability to adapt behavior in response to changing environmental contingencies.This ability, known as behavioral flexibility (BF) can be examined by the attentional set-shifting task (ASST), which has been used in rodent to…

Animal models of neurovascular uncoupling (NVU) would be important tools for developing drugs in neurodegenerative disorders. Pharmacologically induced NVU was established in mice [Tarantini et al., 2015] but only preliminary results are available in rats [Varga et al., 2022]. In the current study we attempted to…

Aims. As the most abundant cells in the central nervous system, astrocytes include two morphological forms (protoplasmic and fibrous), providing structural and functional support for the neurons. Their number and cytoarchitecture are frequently affected by neurodegenerative diseases and aging. The scope of this study…

The cyclic nucleotides (cNs) cAMP and cGMP are involved in the cellular mechanisms underlying long-term potentiation (LTP) and memory. Because a decrease of cNs is observed in aging and neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's Disease (AD), drugs restoring cNs levels, such as PDE inhibitors (PDE-Is), have…

The corpus callosum (CC) is a wide and thick nerve tract in the brain. It is the largest white matter structure in the human brain, measuring approximately 250mm in length, and consisting of 200-300 million myelinated axons. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world's population is getting older.…

Aging differently affects cellular components of the brain active milieu. Here, we analyzed astrocytes and neurons in the neocortical access tissue of younger (22 - 50 years) and older (51 - 72 years) human who underwent resection of glioma or other cancer metastases to the brain. Aging decreased the amount of reduced…

Microglial phenotype during Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) continuum is under debate. At early stages, a protective phenotype with the typical DAM profile would participate in plaque compaction and Aβ degradation. Instead, human AD microglia (HAM) show an enhance aged/degenerative profile, supporting a microglial…

The present study was designed to evaluate age-related alterations of spatial memory in rats prenatally exposed to valproic acid (VPA). To induce autism-like animal model, the pregnant rats were intraperitoneally injected 500 mg/kg NaVPA at the gestation day 12.5. Experiments were carried out on three age groups of…

Sustained attention is the focusing attention process on the selected stimulus for a long time, which can be measured with sustained attention to response task (SART). Our research group aimed to investigate the age-related changes in inhibitory functions with electroencephalography (EEG) in theta oscillations. The…

Neurogenesis, the process in which neural precursor cells differentiate into mature neurons, occurs also postnatally and is critical to cognitive processes such as learning and memory. A main neurogenic niche is located in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, a brain area greatly involved in learning and memory.…

With age, differentiated cells undergo a progressive erosion of epigenetic landscape and loss of cellular identity. Specifically, epigenetic aging involves H3K27ac depletion at cellular identity genes and their subsequent repression, together with H3K27me3-mediated derepression of developmental genes, normally…

Memory-updating is critical in dynamic environments because updating memories with new information promotes versatility. However, little is known about how memories are updated with new information. To study how neuronal ensembles might support memory-updating, we used a hippocampus-dependent spatial reversal task to…