Lecture
Dr. Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize-winning Neuroscientist: Talks at GS Session Highlights
- Two major forms of memory exist with distinct functions, memory physically alters the brain, and strategies to prevent age-related memory decline are currently under investigation.
- By the year 2095, approximately 80 years from the discussion, increasing average lifespans are expected to cause the population to begin worrying about brain aging.
- Individuals who reach their 90s face a 50% probability of developing Alzheimer's disease, though age-related memory loss is described as a distinct entity from Alzheimer's due to its potential for reversibility.
- Continuing professional activity, such as driving a taxi, is considered absolutely essential for maintaining hippocampus size, a conclusion supported by studies in mice.
- Researchers aim to identify specific molecules or treatments to address age-related memory loss, with early results showing that turning on the gene RBAB48 in old mice can eliminate profound memory defects and restore normal memory.
- Injecting osteocalcin into the dentate gyrus increases levels of RBAB48, CREB, and related proteins, which researchers expect will restore most memory deficits in aged mice and further improve memory in young mice.
- Osteocalcin is anticipated to be one of the rejuvenating factors present in young blood, a relationship currently being investigated alongside the possibility that exercise may overcome blood-borne insufficiencies contributing to hippocampal dysfunction.
- Future discoveries are predicted to identify a new form of aphasia not involving Wernicke's or Broca's areas as scientific understanding of brain localization advances.