Agnati L F, Zoli M, Biagini G, Fuxe K
Institute of Human Physiology, University of Modena, Italy.
Acta Physiol Scand. 1992 Aug;145(4):301-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-1716.1992.tb09370.x.
On the basis of the morphofunctional evidence obtained in old brains of humans and mammals the present hypothesis has been introduced. This hypothesis states that neuronal plasticity can be used either to compensate for neuronal degeneration or to store new information. Thus, in pathological ageing the marked rate of degeneration has fully exhausted the already reduced plasticity capability of neural networks. In this way marked impairments of memory trace formation take place in pathological ageing conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. The essence of this hypothesis is that a competition for the available plasticity exists between the compensatory responses to ageing-induced degeneration and the processes necessary for memory trace formation. We have called this hypothesis the 'Red Queen Theory', an analogy borrowed from Lewis Carroll's book Through the Looking Glass. Thus, in ageing, processes responsible for plasticity must be forced to run at the highest possible rate to maintain the morphofunctional substrate of the existing networks as well as to allow the formation of new memory traces.
基于在人类和哺乳动物老年大脑中获得的形态功能证据，提出了本假说。该假说指出，神经元可塑性可用于补偿神经元退化或存储新信息。因此，在病理性衰老中，显著的退化率已完全耗尽了神经网络已经降低的可塑性能力。这样，在诸如阿尔茨海默病等病理性衰老条件下，记忆痕迹形成会出现明显受损。该假说的核心是，在对衰老诱导的退化的代偿反应与记忆痕迹形成所需的过程之间，存在对可用可塑性的竞争。我们将此假说称为“红皇后理论”，这是从刘易斯·卡罗尔的《镜中世界》一书中借用的类比。因此，在衰老过程中，负责可塑性的过程必须被迫以尽可能高的速率运行，以维持现有网络的形态功能基础，并允许形成新的记忆痕迹。
