̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - ageing

£3 million UKRI funding to support research into better health, ageing, and wellbeing

cjb250 — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 10:20:56 +0000

UKRI funding of £3 million is awarded today to support a new research cluster, as part of the MRC National Mouse Genetics Network (MRC NMGN), focused on improving existing models of ageing with the aim of improving lifelong health and wellbeing. ̽��ֱ��cluster is led by scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Newcastle.

̽��ֱ��MRC NMGN focuses on age-related biological changes in model organisms, particularly the mouse, to try and improve our understanding and diagnosis of the most challenging disease area of our time - and generate therapeutic avenues.

This award brings the UKRI’s total investment in the MRC NMGN to £25 million.

̽��ֱ��need to improve how people age has become a major requirement of modern societies. Regular increases in life expectancy result in older populations, making healthy ageing essential for a better quality of life and a reduced burden on health and social services.

Understanding the biological mechanisms underlying the ageing process is paramount for tackling the challenges brought about by our older populations.

̽��ֱ��new tools generated as a result of this research will be made available to the scientific community to improve understanding of the ageing process, and to provide a resource for preclinical testing and intervention.

Professor Walid Khaled from Cambridge’s Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and Department of Pharmacology, and Co-lead of the new MRC National Mouse Genetics Network Ageing Cluster, said: “I am very pleased to be co-leading this project from Cambridge and I am looking forward to working with the rest of the team from around the UK. ‘Prevention is better than cure’ and so our project will generate a reference map that we will use in the future to assess interventions that could prevent ageing related health decline.”

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research & International Partnerships) and Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge, said: "Collaboration is central to our research activities in Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��new Ageing Cluster is a fine example of multiple institutions working together to add value and bring exciting new insight and expertise to advance the critically important field of healthy ageing. I am proud to be part of this important initiative which can deliver new routes to improved health span."

Professor David Burn, Pro Vice Chancellor, Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, added: "I am delighted that Newcastle ̽��ֱ�� is an important part of the UKRI Mouse Genetics Network Ageing Cluster. This cluster offers researchers the opportunity to develop new animal models so that we may better understand ageing. This, in turn, will allow us to translate this research into extending healthy lifespan in humans in the future.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� is bringing together its world leading expertise to tackle the topic of extending the healthy lifespan. Scientists in the School of Biological Sciences are addressing some of the biggest questions in human biology, including: What if we could identify those at risk of developing chronic age-related conditions before they present in the clinic? What if we could intervene before any symptoms arise and prevent disease onset?

UKRI’s strategy for 2022-2027 aims to harness the full power of the UK’s research and innovation system to tackle major national and global challenges. A total of £75m has been allocated to the theme of Securing better health, ageing and wellbeing, which aims to improve population health, tackle the health inequalities affecting people and communities, and advance interventions that keep us healthier for longer.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has received UKRI funding for research on age-related biological changes in model organisms as part of a national collaboration.

‘Prevention is better than cure’ and so our project will generate a reference map that we will use in the future to assess interventions that could prevent ageing related health decline

Walid Khaled

Lauren Christy Pitcher ( ̽��ֱ�� Biomedical Services)

White mouse

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Strongest evidence to date of brain’s ability to compensate for age-related cognitive decline

cjb250 — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 14:00:20 +0000

As we age, our brain gradually atrophies, losing nerve cells and connections and this can lead to a decline in brain function. It’s not fully understood why some people appear to maintain better brain function than others, and how we can protect ourselves from cognitive decline.

A widely accepted notion is that some people’s brains are able to compensate for the deterioration in brain tissue by recruiting other areas of the brain to help perform tasks. While brain imaging studies have shown that the brain does recruit other areas, until now it has not been clear whether this makes any difference to performance on a task, or whether it provides any additional information about how to perform that task.

In a study published in the journal eLife, a team led by scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in collaboration with the ̽��ֱ�� of Sussex have shown that when the brain recruits other areas, it improves performance specifically in the brains of older people.

Study lead Dr Kamen Tsvetanov, an Alzheimer's Society Dementia Research Leader Fellow in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Our ability to solve abstract problems is a sign of so-called ‘fluid intelligence’, but as we get older, this ability begins to show significant decline. Some people manage to maintain this ability better than others. We wanted to ask why that was the case – are they able to recruit other areas of the brain to overcome changes in the brain that would otherwise be detrimental?”

Brain imaging studies have shown that fluid intelligence tasks engage the ‘multiple demand network’ (MDN), a brain network involving regions both at the front and rear of the brain, but its activity decreases with age. To see whether the brain compensated for this decrease in activity, the Cambridge team looked at imaging data from 223 adults between 19 and 87 years of age who had been recruited by the Cambridge Centre for Ageing & Neuroscience (Cam-CAN).

̽��ֱ��volunteers were asked to identify the odd one out in a series of puzzles of varying difficulty, while lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, so that the researchers could look at patterns of brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow.

As anticipated, in general the ability to solve the problems decreased with age. ̽��ֱ��MDN was particularly active, as were regions of the brain involved in processing visual information.

When the team analysed the images further using machine-learning, they found two areas of the brain that showed greater activity in the brains of older people, and also correlated with better performance on the task. These areas were the cuneus, at the rear of the brain, and a region in the frontal cortex. But of the two, only activity in the cuneus region was related to performance of the task more strongly in the older than younger volunteers, and contained extra information about the task beyond the MDN.

Although it is not clear exactly why the cuneus should be recruited for this task, the researchers point out that this brain region is usually good at helping us stay focused on what we see. Older adults often have a harder time briefly remembering information that they have just seen, like the complex puzzle pieces used in the task. ̽��ֱ��increased activity in the cuneus might reflect a change in how often older adults look at these pieces, as a strategy to make up for their poorer visual memory.

Dr Ethan Knights from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge said: “Now that we’ve seen this compensation happening, we can start to ask questions about why it happens for some older people, but not others, and in some tasks, but not others. Is there something special about these people – their education or lifestyle, for example – and if so, is there a way we can intervene to help others see similar benefits?”

Dr Alexa Morcom from the ̽��ֱ�� of Sussex’s School of Psychology and Sussex Neuroscience research centre said: “This new finding also hints that compensation in later life does not rely on the multiple demand network as previously assumed, but recruits areas whose function is preserved in ageing.”

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the Medical Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the Guarantors of Brain, and the Alzheimer’s Society.

Reference

Knights, E et al. Neural Evidence of Functional Compensation for Fluid Intelligence Decline in Healthy Ageing. eLife; 6 Feb 2024; DOI: 10.7554/eLife.93327

Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that our brains can compensate for age-related deterioration by recruiting other areas to help with brain function and maintain cognitive performance.

Now that we’ve seen this compensation happening, we can start to ask questions about why it happens for some older people, but not others - is there something special about these people?

Ethan Knights

CDC

Woman in purple and white floral shirt washing a carrot

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Ageing: can we add more life to our years?

jg533 — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:59:28 +0000

Research advances at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge mean that the eternal quest to reverse the march of time may soon become a reality.

Older adults who remain more active have a better quality of life, study finds

cjb250 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 08:00:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��same was also true for increases in the amount of sedentary time, such as watching TV or reading. ̽��ֱ��researchers say this highlights the need to encourage older adults to remain active.

Physical activity – particularly when it is moderate-intensity and raises your heart rate – is known to reduce the risk of a number of diseases, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. ̽��ֱ��NHS recommends that adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity a week. Older adults are also recommended to break up prolonged periods of being sedentary with light activity when physically possible, or at least with standing, as this has distinct health benefits for older people.

A team led by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge examined activity levels among 1,433 participants aged 60 and above using accelerometers. ̽��ֱ��participants had been recruited to the EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer)-Norfolk study.

Alongside this, the team also looked at health-related quality of life, a measure of health and wellbeing that includes pain, ability to care for yourself and anxiety/mood. Participants were given a score between 0 (worst quality of life) and 1 (best) based on their responses to a questionnaire. Lower quality of life scores are linked with an increased risk of hospitalisation, worse outcomes following hospitalisation, and early death.

Participants were followed up an average of just under six years later to look at changes in their behaviour and quality of life. ̽��ֱ��results of the study are published in Health and Quality of Life Outcomes.

On average, six years after their first assessment, both men and women were doing around 24 minutes less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. At the same time, the total sedentary time increased by an average of around 33 minutes a day for men and around 38 minutes a day for women.

Those individuals who did more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and spent less time sedentary at their first assessment had a higher quality of life later on. An hour a day spent more active was associated with a 0.02 higher quality of life score.

For every minute a day less of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity measured six years after the first assessment, quality of life scores dropped by 0.03. This means that an individual who spent 15 minutes a day less engaged in such activity would have seen their score drop by 0.45.

Increases in sedentary behaviours were also associated with poorer quality of life – a drop in the score of 0.012 for everyone minute a day increase in total sedentary time six years after the first measurement. This means that an individual who spent 15 minutes a day more sitting down would have seen their score drop by 0.18.

To put the results into a clinical context, a 0.1 point improvement in quality of life scores has previously been associated with a 6.9% reduction in early death and a 4.2% reduction in risk of hospitalisation.

Dr Dharani Yerrakalva from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “Keeping yourself active and limiting – and where you can, breaking up – the amount of time you spend sitting down is really important whatever stage of life you’re at. This seems to be particularly important in later life, when it can lead to potentially significant improvements to your quality of life and your physical and mental wellbeing.”

Because the team measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour at different points of time, they say they can be reasonably confident that they have shown a causal link – that is, that quality of life improves because people remain more physically active, for example.

Dr Yerrakalva added: “There are several ways in which improvements in our physical behaviours might help maintain a better quality of life. For example, more physical activity reduces pain in common conditions such as osteoarthritis, and we know that being more physically active improves muscle strength which allows older adults to continue to care for themselves. Similarly, depression and anxiety are linked to quality of life, and can be improved by being more active and less sedentary.”

̽��ֱ��EPIC-Norfolk study is funded by the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK.

Five ways to keep yourself physically-active in older age

A brisk daily walk – ideally for around 20 minutes
Gardening
A bicycle ride
Dancing
Tennis

Reference
Yerrakalva, D et al. Associations between change in physical activity and sedentary time and health-related quality of life in older English adults: the EPIC-Norfolk cohort study. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes; 22 June 2023; DOI: 10.1186/s12955-023-02137-7

A reduction in the amount of time spent physically active when adults are over 60 years old is linked to lower quality of life, a Cambridge study of almost 1,500 adults has shown.

Keeping yourself active and limiting – and where you can, breaking up – the amount of time you spend sitting down is really important whatever stage of life you’re at

Dharani Yerrakalva

Peter Kindersley (Centre for Ageing Better)

Family exercising outdoors

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Scientists detect dementia signs as early as nine years ahead of diagnosis

cjb250 — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 23:01:08 +0000

In research published today in Alzheimer's & Dementia: ̽��ֱ��Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, the team analysed data from the UK Biobank and found impairment in several areas, such as problem solving and number recall, across a range of conditions.

̽��ֱ��findings raise the possibility that in the future, at-risk patients could be screened to help select those who would benefit from interventions to reduce their risk of developing one of the conditions, or to help identify patients suitable for recruitment to clinical trials for new treatments.

There are currently very few effective treatments for dementia or other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. In part, this is because these conditions are often only diagnosed once symptoms appear, whereas the underlying neurodegeneration may have begun years – even decades – earlier. This means that by the time patients take part in clinical trials, it may already be too late in the disease process to alter its course.

Until now, it has been unclear whether it might be possible to detect changes in brain function before the onset of symptoms. To help answer this question, researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust turned to UK Biobank, a biomedical database and research resource containing anonymised genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants aged 40-69.

As well as collecting information on participants’ health and disease diagnoses, UK Biobank collected data from a battery of tests including problem solving, memory, reaction times and grip strength, as well as data on weight loss and gain and on the number of falls. This allowed them to look back to see whether any signs were present at baseline – that is, when measurements were first collected from participants (between five and nine years prior to diagnosis).

People who went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease scored more poorly compared to healthy individuals when it came to problem solving tasks, reaction times, remembering lists of numbers, prospective memory (our ability to remember to do something later on) and pair matching. This was also the case for people who developed a rarer form of dementia known as frontotemporal dementia.

People who went on to develop Alzheimer’s were more likely than healthy adults to have had a fall in the previous 12 months. Those patients who went on to develop a rare neurological condition known as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), which affects balance, were more than twice as likely as healthy individuals to have had a fall.

For every condition studied – including Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies – patients reported poorer overall health at baseline.

First author Nol Swaddiwudhipong, a junior doctor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “When we looked back at patients’ histories, it became clear that they were showing some cognitive impairment several years before their symptoms became obvious enough to prompt a diagnosis. ̽��ֱ��impairments were often subtle, but across a number of aspects of cognition.

“This is a step towards us being able to screen people who are at greatest risk – for example, people over 50 or those who have high blood pressure or do not do enough exercise – and intervene at an earlier stage to help them reduce their risk.”

Senior author Dr Tim Rittman from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge added: “People should not be unduly worried if, for example, they are not good at recalling numbers. Even some healthy individuals will naturally score better or worse than their peers. But we would encourage anyone who has any concerns or notices that their memory or recall is getting worse to speak to their GP.”

Dr Rittman said the findings could also help identify people who can participate in clinical trials for potential new treatments. “ ̽��ֱ��problem with clinical trials is that by necessity they often recruit patients with a diagnosis, but we know that by this point they are already some way down the road and their condition cannot be stopped. If we can find these individuals early enough, we’ll have a better chance of seeing if the drugs are effective.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Medical Research Council with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference
Swaddiwudhipong, N, et al. Pre-Diagnostic Cognitive and Functional Impairment in Multiple Sporadic Neurodegenerative Diseases. Alzheimer's & Dementia; 13 Oct 2022; DOI: 10.1002/alz.12802

Cambridge scientists have shown that it may be possible to spot signs of brain impairment in patients as early as nine years before they receive a diagnosis for one of a number of dementia-related diseases.

When we looked back at patients’ histories, it became clear that they were showing some cognitive impairment several years before their symptoms became obvious enough to prompt a diagnosis

Nol Swaddiwudhipong

Eduardo Barrios

Elderly person's hands

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Mole-rats: meet the Ugly Naked Guys

jg533 — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 08:38:57 +0000

Understanding their weirdness could help prevent and better treat human illnesses like arthritis and cancer.

Live long and prosper

skbf2 — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 09:37:28 +0000

Meet Daniel Ives, co-founder of a Cambridge start-up with one big ambition: to put an end to ageing and the diseases that come with it.

Seven hours of sleep is optimal in middle and old age, say researchers

cjb250 — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 15:00:00 +0000

Sleep plays an important role in enabling cognitive function and maintaining good psychological health. It also helps keep the brain healthy by removing waste products. As we get older, we often see alterations in our sleep patterns, including difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, and decreased quantity and quality of sleep. It is thought that these sleep disturbances may contribute to cognitive decline and psychiatric disorders in the ageing population.

In research published today in Nature Aging, scientists from the UK and China examined data from nearly 500,000 adults aged 38-73 years from the UK Biobank. Participants were asked about their sleeping patterns, mental health and wellbeing, and took part in a series of cognitive tests. Brain imaging and genetic data were available for almost 40,000 of the study participants.

By analysing these data, the team found that both insufficient and excessive sleep duration were associated with impaired cognitive performance, such as processing speed, visual attention, memory and problem-solving skills. Seven hours of sleep per night was the optimal amount of sleep for cognitive performance, but also for good mental health, with people experiencing more symptoms of anxiety and depression and worse overall wellbeing if they reported sleeping for longer or shorter durations.

̽��ֱ��researchers say one possible reason for the association between insufficient sleep and cognitive decline may be due to the disruption of slow-wave – ‘deep’ – sleep. Disruption to this type of sleep has been shown to have a close link with memory consolidation as well as the build-up of amyloid – a key protein which, when it misfolds, can cause ‘tangles’ in the brain characteristic of some forms of dementia. Additionally, lack of sleep may hamper the brain’s ability to rid itself of toxins.

̽��ֱ��team also found a link between the amount of sleep and differences in the structure of brain regions involved in cognitive processing and memory, again with greater changes associated with greater than or less than seven hours of sleep.

Having a consistent seven hours’ sleep each night, without too much fluctuation in duration, was also important to cognitive performance and good mental health and wellbeing. Previous studies have also shown that interrupted sleep patterns are associated with increased inflammation, indicating a susceptibility to age-related diseases in older people.

Professor Jianfeng Feng from Fudan ̽��ֱ�� in China said: “While we can’t say conclusively that too little or too much sleep causes cognitive problems, our analysis looking at individuals over a longer period of time appears to support this idea. But the reasons why older people have poorer sleep appear to be complex, influenced by a combination of our genetic makeup and the structure of our brains.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say the findings suggest that insufficient or excessive sleep duration may be a risk factor for cognitive decline in ageing. This is supported by previous studies that have reported a link between sleep duration and the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, in which cognitive decline is a hallmark symptom.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, one of the study’s authors, said: “Getting a good night’s sleep is important at all stages of life, but particularly as we age. Finding ways to improve sleep for older people could be crucial to helping them maintain good mental health and wellbeing and avoiding cognitive decline, particularly for patients with psychiatric disorders and dementias.”

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China, the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project, the Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology, the 111 Project, the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China and the Shanghai Rising Star Program.

Reference
Li, Y, Sahakian, BJ, et al. ̽��ֱ��brain structure and genetic mechanisms underlying the nonlinear association between sleep duration, cognition and mental health. Nature Aging; 28 Apr 2022l DOI: 10.1038/s43587-022-00210-2

Seven hours is the ideal amount of sleep for people in their middle age and upwards, with too little or too much sleep associated with poorer cognitive performance and mental health, say researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Fudan ̽��ֱ��.

Getting a good night’s sleep is important at all stages of life, but particularly as we age

Barbara Sahakian

Pornpak Khunatorn

Insomnia or sleep changes and disorders in elderly concept

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