Institute of Developmental Biology and Neurobiology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Laboratory of Experimental Physiology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Athens, Greece.
PLoS One. 2024 Apr 9;19(4):e0293252. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293252. eCollection 2024.
Motor and cognitive aging can severely affect life quality of elderly people and burden health care systems. In search for diagnostic behavioral biomarkers, it has been suggested that walking speed can predict forms of cognitive decline, but in humans, it remains challenging to separate the effects of biological aging and lifestyle. We examined a possible association of motor and cognitive decline in Drosophila, a genetic model organism of healthy aging. Long term courtship memory is present in young male flies but absent already during mid life (4-8 weeks). By contrast, courtship learning index and short term memory (STM) are surprisingly robust and remain stable through mid (4-8 weeks) and healthy late life (>8 weeks), until courtship performance collapses suddenly at ~4.5 days prior to death. By contrast, climbing speed declines gradually during late life (>8 weeks). The collapse of courtship performance and short term memory close to the end of life occur later and progress with a different time course than the gradual late life decline in climbing speed. Thus, during healthy aging in male Drosophila, climbing and courtship motor behaviors decline differentially. Moreover, cognitive and motor performances decline at different time courses. Differential behavioral decline during aging may indicate different underlying causes, or alternatively, a common cause but different thresholds for defects in different behaviors.
运动和认知衰老会严重影响老年人的生活质量，并给医疗保健系统带来负担。为了寻找诊断行为生物标志物，有人提出行走速度可以预测认知能力下降的形式，但在人类中，要将生物衰老和生活方式的影响分开仍然具有挑战性。我们在一种遗传模式生物果蝇中研究了运动和认知能力下降之间的可能联系，这种生物是健康衰老的遗传模型。年轻雄性果蝇存在长期求偶记忆，但在中年（4-8 周）时已经不存在。相比之下，求偶学习指数和短期记忆（STM）惊人地稳定，通过中年（4-8 周）和健康的老年期（>8 周）保持稳定，直到求偶表现突然在接近死亡前约 4.5 天崩溃。相比之下，爬速在老年期（>8 周）逐渐下降。求偶表现和短期记忆的崩溃接近生命末期，其进展与爬速的逐渐老年下降具有不同的时间进程。因此，在雄性果蝇的健康衰老过程中，攀爬和求偶运动行为会以不同的方式下降。此外，认知和运动表现以不同的时间进程下降。衰老过程中不同的行为下降可能表明不同的潜在原因，或者相反，对于不同行为的缺陷是共同的原因，但阈值不同。
