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This study shows that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces paracrine senescence in adjacent uninfected cells via virus-induced cytokine secretion. This resulted in a persistent inflammatory response associated with senescence even after SARS-CoV-2 disappearance.
Life expectancy gains have prompted a planned rise in state pension ages in a number of countries but may not be matched by an extension in healthy working lives. Here the authors project healthy working life expectancy in England to the year 2035 and forecast a lesser increase than the projected gains in life expectancy.
This study shows that age-related cognitive decline is alleviated by heterochronic microbiota transplantation in mice and that δ-valerobetaine, a microbiota-derived metabolite that increases with age in both mice and humans, alters neuronal and cognitive processes.
The authors developed a vaccine against a membrane-bound seno-antigen called GPNMB and show that it can be used as a new senolytic approach. The vaccine led to improvements of several age-related phenotypes and prolonged the lifespan of a progeroid mouse model.
Using a new computational approach to identify senescent cells from single-cell transcriptomic data, the authors find that most senescent cells in the human brain are excitatory neurons with elevated CDKN2D/p19 expression, which often display Alzheimer’s disease-associated tau pathology.
A longitudinal analysis of the mental health impacts of COVID-19 found that over 43% of middle-aged and older adults showed depressive symptoms that increased over time, with loneliness and pandemic stressors being the main predictors.
This study shows that dietary supplementation with B. adolescentis increases the activity of the catalase enzyme and improves the healthspan and lifespan in multiple animal models. Deletion of the catalase enzyme in worms abolished the beneficial effects of the bacterium.
Cutler et al. found that age predicted individuals’ likelihood to engage in prosocial behaviors such as social distancing during COVID-19 and charitable donations. Older adults across the world were more willing to help but also demonstrated stronger in-group preferences, donating less to international charities.
In a sample of about 400 cognitively normal older adults, APOE ε4 genotype and β-amyloid pathology predicted better and poorer visual working memory, respectively, suggesting some benefits of ε4 in older age, even in the preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
The gut microbiome can change with age and influence aging-related diseases systemically, including in the brain. The authors show that rejuvenation of the gut microbiome by fecal microbiota transplantation from young mice reverses aging-induced deficits in the hippocampal immune system, metabolome and transcriptome, and rescues selective cognitive deficits.
A cognitive intervention study for communicating information about COVID-19 transmission risk found that older adults tended to forget numerical information but reported increased perceived risk after imagining a personalized scenario with social consequences.
Facility-level factors associated with increased mortality rates among nursing home residents in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic included a higher proportion of patients with complex diseases, lower scores on pandemic preparedness measures and higher COVID-19 incidence levels in the surrounding neighborhood.
In a cohort of older men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study, exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), over just a few weeks and under levels considered hazardous, was found to impede cognitive function in older adults, but the adverse effects were lessened in people taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Aging is accompanied by structural and functional alterations of the central nervous system (CNS). Here, the authors show that cytotoxic CD8+ T cells accumulate in the CNS during normal aging, leading to axonal damage and contributing to age-related cognitive and motor decline.