Brain aging found to start at 40: Genes can begin to fail early
[17 June 2004 - Harvard Gazette] Bruce Yankner, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, is investigating how human brains change between ages 26 and 106. If you are more than 40 years old, the news may not be good. He and his colleagues at Children's Hospital in Boston and Harvard searched brain tissue from 30 people for changes in genes involved in learning and memory, and for damage to these genes caused by the normal stresses of living. From ages 26 to 40 years, their brains show similar patterns of wear and tear and low levels of gene damage. Brains 73 years and older exhibited more damage, as expected. A big surprise, however, came in the middle ages. Some people between 40 and 70 had gene patterns more like younger people, and some like older people. "In other words, people in their middle-age years show variable rates of brain aging," says Yankner, who is 50. ...