Aging, circadian disruption and neurodegeneration: Interesting interplay

Dec 27, 2022Experimental gerontology

How Aging and Body Clock Disruption May Relate to Brain Degeneration

AI simplified

Circadian Biology on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

Aging is associated with a natural decline in melatonin levels, which contributes to circadian dysregulation.

The circadian system coordinates internal rhythms in response to environmental cues through complex feedback loops.
Aging appears to reduce the effectiveness of the circadian clock, impacting its function in both rodents and humans.
Decreased melatonin levels due to aging may lead to neurological anomalies linked to circadian disruptions.
Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) is implicated in causing circadian disruption, which can be associated with various diseases.
Circadian disruption may be a risk factor for developing age-related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases.
Chrono-enhancement approaches are proposed as potential strategies to address the negative impacts of circadian disruption.

AI simplified

The circadian system is an intricate molecular network of coordinating circadian clocks that organize the internal synchrony of the organism in response to the environment. These rhythms are maintained by genetically programmed positive and negative auto-regulated transcriptional and translational feedback loops that sustain 24-hour oscillations in mRNA and protein components of the endogenous circadian clock. Since inter and intracellular activity of the central pacemaker appears to reduce with aging, the interaction between the circadian clock and aging continues to elude our understanding. In this review article, we discuss circadian clock components at the molecular level and how aging adversely affects circadian clock functioning in rodents and humans. The natural decline in melatonin levels with aging strongly contributes to circadian dysregulation resulting in the development of neurological anomalies. Additionally, inappropriate environmental conditions such as Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) can cause circadian disruption or chronodisruption (CD) which can result in a variety of pathological diseases, including premature aging. Furthermore, we summarize recent evidence suggesting that CD may also be a predisposing factor for the development of age-related neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and Huntington's disease (HD), although more investigation is required to prove this link. Finally, certain chrono-enhancement approaches have been offered as intervention strategies to prevent, alleviate, or mitigate the impacts of CD. This review thus aims to bring together recent advancements in the chronobiology of the aging process, as well as its role in NDDs.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View full text (XML) ↗View full text ↗

Aging, circadian disruption and neurodegeneration: Interesting interplay

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the circadian biology brief