TITLE:
Relationship between Age and Neurogenesis in Old World Monkeys
AUTHORS:
Tarique D. Perera, Arkadiy Yaretskiy, Anna V. Rozenboym, Zeena Audi, Cecilia Lipira, Jean Tang, Jeremy Hill, Lakshmi Thirumangalakudi, Daniel C. Lee, Andrew J. Dwork, Jeremy D. Coplan
KEYWORDS:
Neurogenesis; Age; Macaca Radiate; Nonhuman Primates
JOURNAL NAME:
Neuroscience and Medicine,
Vol.4 No.3,
September
11,
2013
ABSTRACT: Hippocampal neurogenesis
continues throughout the lifespan of adult mammals, but the rates decline
dramatically with increasing age. Among the factors that have been shown to
affect neurogenesis, aging has been shown to be one of its most potent
regulators in mice. The mechanism for the decline in neurogenesis with age is
thought to be related to age-dependent changes in local and systemic
neuroendocrinology and neurochemistry, as well as internal changes to precursor
cells that result in decreased reactivity to normal stimuli. Since most of the
data about neurogenesis and age were established from rodent studies, we
sought to study this relationship in nonhuman primates in five previously studied cohorts
of bonnet monkeys (Macaca radiata).
In the present study, we statistically analyze the relationship of age and
hippocampal neurogenesis rates, as measured by the number of DCX expressing
cells in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus in 71 subjects with ages
ranging from 3.5 to 17 years. We observed a non-significant relationship
between age and doublecortin for subjects less than nine years old
(corresponding to young and full adulthood) but a linear significant
decline for subjects 9 years or greater (middle age and senescence). In
contrast to previous studies that show neurogenesis to decline linearly
throughout the lifespan, this study shows that neurogenesis occurs steadily
throughout adulthood and begins to decline in middle age in bonnet macaques.