Abstract
Frailty is a geriatric syndrome associated with both locomotor and cognitive decline, implicated in both poor quality of life and negative health outcomes. One central question surrounding frailty is whether phenotypic frailty is associated with the cognitive impairment during aging. Using spontaneous behavioral tests and by studying the dynamic change during aging, we demonstrated that the two form of vulnerability, locomotor and recognition memory decline, develop in parallel and therefore, integration of the motoric and cognitive evaluations are imperative. We developed an integrated frailty index based on both phenotypic and recognition memory performances. Hericium erinaceus (H. erinaceus) is a medicinal mushroom that improves recognition memory in mice. By using HPLC-UV-ESI/MS analyses we obtained standardized amounts of erinacine A and hericenones C and D in H. erinaceus extracts, that were tested in our animal model of physiological aging. Two-month oral supplementation with H. erinaceus reversed the age-decline of recognition memory. Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and doublecortin (DCX) immunohistochemistry in the hippocampus and cerebellum in treated mice supported a positive effect of an H. erinaceus on neurogenesis in frail mice.
Highlights
Recent reports on the European population suggest that by 2060, 30% of Europeans will be over the age of 65
Novelty recognition memory for a new environment and for novel objects was tested by way of emergence and Novel Object Recognition (NOR) tasks, respectively
For the reader to understand the practical application of these tests, a comparison of the different developmental stages between humans and mice during their life span, according to Dutta and Sengupta is outlined in Figure 1 [45]
Summary
Recent reports on the European population suggest that by 2060, 30% of Europeans will be over the age of 65. Frailty is a geriatric syndrome associated with poor quality of life and negative health outcomes, such as acute illness, falls, hospitalization, disability, dependency, and mortality, adjusted for comorbidities [1,2,3], in the absence of recognized disabilities or organ-specific diseases. Fried defined phenotypic frailty as an aging-associated phenotype expressing at least three of the following symptoms: weakness, weight loss, slow walking speed, fatigue, and a low level of physical activity [1]. Cognitive impairment is a decline of cognitive functions such as remembering, reasoning, and planning, ranging from mild forms of forgetfulness to severe dementia. Cognition-impaired frailty in human studies was associated with global cognition and perceptual speed, but not with episodic memory [7]. Quality of life in the elderly is affected by impairments in the functioning of the memory system [8]. In order to evaluate the inclusion of cognitive performances in frailty clinical diagnosis [9], it is necessary to first determine whether phenotypic frailty is associated with cognitive impairment [10]
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