Piantanelli L, Viticchi C, Fattoretti P, Basso A
Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 1986 Dec;5(4):325-32. doi: 10.1016/0167-4943(86)90035-x.
Many neuroendocrine functions are altered in old animals and their study may represent important steps in the understanding of the mechanisms of aging. A deeper insight, however, can be achieved by investigating the responsiveness to stimuli, which may reveal alterations not evident in the unstimulated conditions. At this level of study, many of such impairments have been found to be caused by receptor changes. In the present paper a third level of study is suggested in order to gain evidence of some remote failure of adaptive processes strictly linked to intimate mechanisms of aging. As at the second level of study different receptor characteristics can frequently be found at the basis of age-related alterations of biological responsiveness, at the proposed third level altered capacity of receptor regulation may be hypothesized as responsible for altered cell adaptation following hormone and drug stimuli. Experimental data are given which support this view. The possibility that receptor regulation may be used as an index of aging is suggested. This hypothesis leads to the problem of judging the validity of biological parameters deputed to represent good indices of aging. In order to solve this problem, the potential use of a mathematical model of mortality kinetics is discussed.
许多神经内分泌功能在老年动物中会发生改变，对其进行研究可能是理解衰老机制的重要步骤。然而，通过研究对刺激的反应性可以获得更深入的认识，这可能揭示在未受刺激条件下不明显的变化。在这个研究层面，已发现许多此类损伤是由受体变化引起的。在本文中，建议进行第三个层面的研究，以便获得一些与衰老的内在机制紧密相关的适应性过程的远期衰退的证据。正如在第二个研究层面，不同的受体特征常常是生物反应性与年龄相关改变的基础，在提议的第三个层面，可以假设受体调节能力的改变是激素和药物刺激后细胞适应性改变的原因。文中给出了支持这一观点的实验数据。有人提出受体调节可用作衰老指标的可能性。这一假设引发了判断用于代表衰老良好指标的生物学参数有效性的问题。为了解决这个问题，讨论了死亡率动力学数学模型的潜在用途。
