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The difference in cerebral metabolic age would explain why older women suffer less from Alzheimer's disease
Did you know that chronological age is not always the same as functioning of our brain?
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February 8, 2019, 5:35 pm
(Adam Gault / Getty Images) It is possible that the gray matter of a 70-year-old person is equivalent to that of a person who is 70 years old. a person of 65, for example, especially if it is a woman.
This is at least what a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, last Monday (4). According to research, the female brain is four years younger than the male.
This gap appears early in adulthood and remains unchanged over the years, until older age. To perform this badysis, scientists used the technique of positron emission tomography to evaluate the flow of oxygen and glucose in the brains of 121 women and 84 men aged 20 to 82 years. .
"Brain metabolism changes by age, but what we have noticed is that much of the variation is due to differences between the bades," said the Guardian neurobiologist Marcus Raichle from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Washington in St. Louis.
Exams such as the one used in the study measure the level of a process called aerobic glycolysis, which is very intense in the brain development of infants and children. It slows down with time until it stabilizes at very low levels after 60 years. To define the differences between the bades, researchers have developed an algorithm that ranks the age of people according to the results of brain tests.
In the case of men, the program indicated the same cerebral and chronological age, while the brains of women showed 3.8 years younger than their actual age. "The big mystery is why," said Raichle. "Women may already start with this difference and it will continue throughout life."
With respect to its effects, further research is needed to determine whether less metabolic activity in some gray matter regions would increase the risk of development. memory loss, cognitive problems or degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. "But if aerobic glycolysis is in some way protective and the brain loses an element, it could be a problem."
Although the causes, consequences, and significance of the discovery remain mysterious, these findings are an indication of why we see many much older men with some degree of cognitive impairment. "This is perhaps the reason why women do not experience as much cognitive decline at older ages: their brains are actually younger," said radiologist Mani Goyal, the main author of the article.
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