Patterns Differ in Aging Brains

Researchers led by Carl Cotman and Nicole Berchtold of the University of California, Irvine find that the activity of genes in men's brains begins to change earlier than in women's brains. The types of changes also differ between the sexes.

The study, published online October 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found that in both genders each part of the brain examined had its own pattern of aging.

"This is a very interesting study in what is, curiously, an under-studied area, normal aging," says Etienne Sibille of the University of Pittsburgh.

Cotman and Berchtold and their colleagues collected brains from people who had died between ages 20 and 99. The researchers isolated messenger RNA, or mRNA, which carries instructions for building proteins. Active genes produce higher levels of mRNA.

The team discovered that disease-susceptible parts of the brain have the least amount of change in gene activity with age. The postcentral gyrus, an area dedicated to perception, changes most.

While men showed changes in metabolic activity with age, women showed changes in genes that establish neural connections and control information exchange.

"What I think it means, especially for men, is that interventions -- either lifestyle or medication -- may be needed to keep these energy pathways robust," Berchtold says.

Men in their 60s and 70s show more changes In gene activity, relative to the preceding two decades, than women.