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telomere length and cerebral cortex thickness


corybroo

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Medical Xpress has an article  Cellular aging is linked to structural changes in the brain
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-09-cellular-aging-linked-brain.html

Telomere length is therefore regarded as a marker for the biological age … person with shorter telomeres has an increased risk of developing age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's or cancer, and even a shorter life expectancy.

Recent studies suggest that telomeres can change faster than previously thought, possibly taking just one to six months of mental or physical training to elongate.

"To explore whether a short-term change in telomere length, after only a few months, might actually be associated with changes in a person's biological age, we linked it to another biomarker of aging and health: brain structure,"

Four MRIs and blood draws for leukocyte DNA three months apart
If the telomeres changed in length, this was associated with structural changes in the brain. In a period when participants' telomeres lengthened during the study, it was also more likely that their cortex had thickened at the same time. On the other hand, telomere shortening was associated with reductions of gray matter. This association occurred specifically in a brain region called the precuneus, which is a central metabolic and connectional hub.

Open questions:
it remains unclear if telomere elongation actually reflects any improvement in a person's overall health and aging trajectory.
Future studies will need to continue to address the question of which measures or behaviors most effectively stop or even reverse telomere shortening, and the biological aging process.

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