Even when you're older, you need chaperones: protective genes reduce as we age
Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - 04:01
in Health & Medicine
Aging is the most significant risk factor for developing neurodegenerative diseases, and the risk increases disproportionately with age. Now a team of scientists has uncovered some clues as to why. The researchers are the first to find that the quality of protective genes called molecular chaperones declines dramatically in the brains of older humans, both healthy and not, and that the decline is accelerated even more in humans with neurodegenerative disease.