Department of Psychology and Program Neuroscience, Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2010 Aug 13;2. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2010.00030. eCollection 2010.
To identify interventions for brain aging, we must first identify the processes in which we hope to intervene. Brain aging is a period of decreasing functional capacity and increasing vulnerability, which reflect a reduction in morphological organization and perhaps degeneration. Since life is ultimately dependent upon the ability to maintain cellular organization through metabolism, this review explores evidence for a decline in neural metabolic support during aging, which includes a reduction in whole brain cerebral blood flow, and cellular metabolic capacity. Capillary density may also decrease with age, although the results are less clear. Exercise may be a highly effective intervention for brain aging, because it improves the cardiovascular system as a whole, and increases regional capillary density and neuronal metabolic capacity. Although the evidence is strongest for motor regions, more work may yield additional evidence for exercise-related improvement in metabolic support in non-motor regions. The protective effects of exercise may be specific to brain region and the type of insult. For example, exercise protects striatal cells from ischemia, but it produces mixed results after hippocampal seizures. Exercise can improve metabolic support and bioenergetic capacity in adult animals, but it remains to be determined whether it has similar effects in aging animals. What is clear is that exercise can influence the multiple levels of support necessary for maintaining optimal neuronal function, which is unique among proposed interventions for aging.
为了确定针对大脑衰老的干预措施，我们必须首先确定我们希望干预的过程。大脑衰老的过程是功能能力下降和脆弱性增加的时期，反映了形态组织的减少，甚至可能是退化。由于生命最终依赖于通过新陈代谢维持细胞组织的能力，因此本综述探讨了神经代谢支持在衰老过程中下降的证据，包括全脑脑血流和细胞代谢能力的减少。毛细血管密度也可能随年龄而降低，尽管结果不太清楚。运动可能是针对大脑衰老的一种非常有效的干预措施，因为它可以改善整个心血管系统，并增加局部毛细血管密度和神经元代谢能力。虽然证据在运动区域最强，但更多的工作可能会产生更多关于运动相关的非运动区域代谢支持改善的证据。运动的保护作用可能特定于大脑区域和损伤类型。例如，运动可以保护纹状体细胞免受缺血的影响，但在海马体癫痫发作后产生的结果则喜忧参半。运动可以改善成年动物的代谢支持和生物能量能力，但仍需确定它对衰老动物是否具有类似的效果。清楚的是，运动可以影响维持最佳神经元功能所需的多个支持水平，这在针对衰老的多种干预措施中是独一无二的。
