BRAIN PARTS THAT CONTROLS BASIC LIFE FUNCTIONS
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Answer:The brain stem is the oldest and innermost region of the brain. It's designed to control the most basic functions of life, including breathing, attention, and motor responses .
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Brain part that controls basic functions also.
The mechanism that controls aging has been identified in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls most of life's basic functions. By manipulating this mechanism, the researchers both shortened and extended the lifespan of mice. The discovery reveals several new drug targets that, if not quite the elixir of youth, may at least delay the onset of age-related disease.
The hypothalamus is the puppet master in the almond-sized brain. "It has a global effect," says Dongsheng Cai of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. It sits on the brainstem, is the interface between the brain and the rest of the body, and is involved in controlling our automatic response to the world around us, hormone levels, sleep-wake cycles, immunity and reproduction, among other things.
While investigating aging processes in the brain, Cai and his colleagues noticed that aging mice produced increasing levels of nuclear factor-kB (NF-kB), a protein complex that plays a major role in regulating immune responses. The protein is barely active in the hypothalamus of 3- to 4-month-old mice, but becomes highly active in old mice at 22 to 24 months of age.
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The part of the brain that controls basic functions also has a mechanism that affects aging
By Douglas Heaven on May 6, 2013
The mechanism that controls aging has been identified in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls most of life's basic functions. By manipulating this mechanism, the researchers both shortened and extended the lifespan of mice. The discovery reveals several new drug targets that, if not quite the elixir of youth, may at least delay the onset of age-related disease.
The hypothalamus is the puppet master in the almond-sized brain. "It has a global effect," says Dongsheng Cai of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. It sits on the brainstem, is the interface between the brain and the rest of the body, and is involved in controlling our automatic response to the world around us, hormone levels, sleep-wake cycles, immunity and reproduction, among other things.
While investigating aging processes in the brain, Cai and his colleagues noticed that aging mice produced increasing levels of nuclear factor-kB (NF-kB), a protein complex that plays a major role in regulating immune responses. The protein is barely active in the hypothalamus of 3- to 4-month-old mice, but becomes highly active in old mice at 22 to 24 months of age.
To see if it was possible to influence aging by manipulating the levels of this protein complex, Cai's team tested three groups of middle-aged mice. One group received gene therapy that inhibits NF-kB, another had gene therapy to activate NF-kB, and the third was allowed to age naturally.
This last group lived, as expected, between 600 and 1000 days. All mice with activated NF-kB died within 900 days, while animals with NF-kB inhibition lived up to 1100 days.
The mice that lived the longest also stayed mentally and physically fit longer. Six months after receiving the gene therapy, all mice were subjected to a series of tests involving cognitive and physical abilities.
In all tests, the mice that subsequently lived the longest outperformed those in the control group, while the short-lived mice fared the worst.
Postmortem examinations of the muscles and bones of the longest-lived rodents also showed that they had many of the chemical and physical properties of younger mice.
Further research revealed that NF-kB reduces the level of a chemical produced by the hypothalamus called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) – better known for its involvement in regulating puberty and fertility and the production of eggs and sperm.
To see if they could control lifespan with the hormone, the team gave another group of mice -- aged 20 to 24 months -- daily injections of GnRH for five to eight weeks. These mice also lived longer, similar to NF-kB inhibited mice.
GnRH injections also led to the formation of new neurons in the brain. What's more, when GnRH was injected directly into the hypothalamus, it affected other areas of the brain, reversing widespread age-related decline, further supporting the idea that the hypothalamus could be a master regulator of many aging processes.
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