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A team of Japanese researchers say they’ve identified how a set of proteins in nerve cells declines with age, a discovery that may someday lead to a therapy to maintain brain health in later life.
In a study on mice published Friday in the EMBO Reports journal, a team led by associate professor Ken-ichiro Kuwako at Shimane University’s School of Medicine said the protein group, known as the LINC complex, plays a key role in controlling neuron activity.
The researchers found that the ability of 3-month-old mice to produce key molecules that make up the nerve cells’ LINC complex, such as Sun1 and Nesprin-1, was very high, but that it declined significantly by 12 months and even further after 20 months across many brain regions.
