Recovery of Age-Related Memory Loss: Hopes and Challenges

Abstract

Advancing age is associated with drastic decline in memory and is a predisposing factor for neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Such decline results from aging of the brain involving loss of morphological integrity, alterations at the level of genes, enzymes and hormones, metabolism, oxidative stress, protein processing and synaptic function. Multiple biological scales ranging from genes to neural network and behavior and the individual variability that span age associated memory loss have added complexity to the recovery strategies. However, recent advancement in neuroscience research has not only removed the myth of unrecoverable memory loss during aging but also proposed a multitude of recovery approaches. These approaches include herbal interventions, dietary restrictions, antioxidant supplementation, environmental enrichment, lifestyle modulation and molecular targeting. Our laboratory is particularly interested in unraveling the molecular mechanism of age related memory loss and delineate therapeutic targets. Studies on animal models and humans reveal drastic changes in the expression and function of a wide array of molecules including chromatin modifying enzymes, immediate early genes, neurotrophins, presynaptic and postsynaptic proteins and neurite growth markers in vulnerable brain regions of cerebral cortex and hippocampus during aging. Such molecular changes are well translated into behavioral paradigms of memory impairment. In this chapter, we review age associated changes in brain, mechanisms of memory loss and recovery strategies. Essentially, we highlight the molecular correlates of brain aging and their potential as therapeutic targets for age associated memory loss.