If you find yourself despairing over your anti-ageing wellness, your hypothalamus could be to blame. This is according to researchers of a new study, published in the journal Nature, who have found that this brain region controls physical ageing, and, when it is targeted, the hypothalamus could be used to manipulate the lifespan of lab mice.
Although this finding is yet to be tested in human subjects, the new research may be a step towards finding the holy grail of slowing human ageing. Your hypothalamus is a region in your brain region that regulates growth, reproduction and metabolism; in the gradual and coordinated bodily deterioration we call ageing. Scientists have long suspected the brain of orchestrating the ageing process, but this is the first evidence to actually prove this speculation.
For the study, the New York-based team of researchers found that, by activating or inhibiting the brain signalling molecule NF-kB in the hypothalamus, they could speed up or slow down ageing in mice. Targeting the NF-kB molecule affects your levels of a hormone called GnRH, which plays a role in the generation of neurons (the data processing cells in your brain). When NF-kB was stimulated, the GnRH declined. This led to impaired neurogenesis and ageing symptoms like muscle weakening, skin atrophy, bone loss and memory impairment.
According to the study’s senior author Dongsheng Cai, professor of molecular pharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, ‘Our study provided interventional strategies to slow down ageing through targeting the hypothalamus. It can help to slow down ageing, which is already a big breakthrough, as it can counteract against many ageing-related diseases. However, he stipulated, ‘I don’t think ageing could be completely stopped.’ Cai added that it is very likely that the mouse results would translate into humans, ‘though it will need future efforts to develop safe and applicable approaches to humans.’
Writing in Nature, Harvard Medical School experts Dana Gabuzda and Bruce Yankner commented that, if the results were validated, the research may have important implications for treatment of age-related diseases – particularly those linked to inflammation. They noted, ‘The idea also raises the intriguing possibility that hypothalamic regulation could be therapeutically manipulated to have broad effects on the ageing process.’
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