Table Of ContentBrain Aging and Therapeutic Interventions
Mahendra K. Thakur · Suresh I. S. Rattan
Editors
Brain Aging and Therapeutic
Interventions
1 3
Editors
Mahendra K. Thakur Suresh I.S. Rattan
Banaras Hindu University Aarhus University
Varanasi Denmark
India
ISBN 978-94-007-5236-8 ISBN 978-94-007-5237-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5237-5
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
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Editorial: Maintaining Brain Health
Throughout Life
The idea of compiling this book was conceived during a satellite symposium on
“Brain Aging and Dementia: Basic and Clinical Aspects”, following the 5th Con-
gress of the Federation of Asian and Oceanian Neuroscience Societies(FAONS) on
Nov 26–28, 2010 at Hotel Clarks Avadh, Lucknow, India. The satellite symposium
was held at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and sponsored by the Department
of Biotechnology, Government of India. One of the main inspiring forces behind
this idea was Padmashri Professor M.S. Kanungo, respected as the “Father of Bio-
gerontology in India”, who, unfortunately, could not see the result of his inspiration,
as he passed away in July 2011. Therefore, we dedicate this book to the memory of
Professor Kanungo, who was the mentor of numerous biogerontologists, several of
whom are the contributors of articles in this book.
Maintaining physical and mental health throughout life is the ideal goal of all
biomedical research. This becomes even more challenging and imminent in a rap-
idly changing demographic scenario throughout the world, which has significantly
increased the proportion of the elderly in a population. However, this great success
in the extension of lifespan has been accompanied by a parallel increase in the inci-
dence of neurological and psychiatric disorders in old age. Therefore, understand-
ing brain aging and testing, developing and applying novel methods of prevention
and treatment of brain disorders is a high priority area.
Recently, there have been enormous advances in the understanding of brain ag-
ing and related disorders facilitated by the advancement in neuroimaging and other
techniques. The brain undergoes a number of structural and functional changes with
increasing age and these changes vary greatly from one person to the next. In par-
ticular, studies have focused on basic mechanisms of brain aging, pathogenesis of
brain disorders and development of therapeutic strategies. A common concern in
old age is the decline in cognitive functions, particularly the decrease in efficiency
to learn new skills and difficulty in retrieving the memory stored throughout the life.
Hence, researchers have been analysing the mechanisms of memory formation and
its impairment and devise the strategies to improve the cognitive functions.
v
vvii Editorial: Maintaining Brain Health Throughout Life
This book is our attempt to bring together information on different aspects of
brain aging and on the strategies for intervention and therapy of age-related brain
disorders. It includes 18 chapters written by leading researchers in the field on dif-
ferent aspects of brain aging and on therapeutic interventions. Each chapter is a
comprehensive and critical review of the topic in question, discusses the current
scenario and focuses on future perspectives. The target readership for this collection
of articles is the undergraduate and graduate students in the universities, in medical
and nursing colleges, along with the post-graduate researchers taking up research
projects on different aspects of brain aging, and practicing clinicians who would
like to know about the latest developments in the field of neurodegenerative dis-
orders and their therapeutic interventions. This book will also be important for the
college and university libraries maintaining a good database in biology, medical and
biomedical sciences. This book will be of much interest to pharmaceutical, nutrition
and healthcare industry for an easy access to accurate and reliable information in the
field of aging research and intervention.
As editors, we are grateful to all the authors for their valuable contributions,
timely submission of chapters and making revisions as suggested by the reviewers.
We are also grateful to Padma Vibhusan Professor P.N. Tandon for his constant sup-
port and encouragement during the preparation of this book.
M. K. Thakur and Suresh I. S. Rattan
Editors
Contents
1 Brain Aging: A Critical Reappraisal ........................................................ 1
Mahendra K. Thakur, Arpita Konar and Akash Gautam
2 Base Excision DNA Repair: The House Keeping Guardian
for Genomic Stability in the Brain ........................................................... 19
Umakanta Swain and Kalluri Subba Rao
3 Role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor as a modulator of
synaptic plasticity ....................................................................................... 37
Yasuyuki Ishikawa and Masami Kojima
4 Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease:
Mechanisms, Consequences and Interventions ....................................... 49
Sasanka Chakrabarti and Maitrayee Sinha
5 Brain Aging: Influence of Early–Life Events on Late-Life
Brain Disorders .......................................................................................... 67
Debomoy K. Lahiri
6 T he Importance of the Environment in Brain Aging: Be
Happy, Live Longer! .................................................................................. 79
Mónica De la Fuente and Lorena Arranz
7 Consequences of Altered Mortalin Expression in Control of
Cell Proliferation and Brain Function ..................................................... 95
Renu Wadhwa and Sunil C. Kaul
8 Age-Induced Alterations in Biological Clock: Therapeutic
Effects of Melatonin ................................................................................... 111
Anita Jagota
vii
vviiiiii Contents
9 Neurolipofuscin in Aging and Aluminum-Induced Aging:
Possible Therapeutic Interventions ........................................................ 131
Mahdi Hasan, Sandeep Tripathi and Abbas A. Mahdi
10 Dietary Restriction as a Potential Intervention to Retard
Age-associated Impairment of Brain Functions .................................... 147
Gurcharan Kaur and Sukhwinder S Lakhman
11 Understanding Mechanism of Action of Herbal Drugs in
Age Related Degenerative Brain Disorders ........................................... 159
Maheep Bhatnagar, Ayushi Jain, Neha Jaiswal, Chavi Sharma
and Pooja Suvalka
12 Neurodegeneration in Hypoxia: Implications in Aging ........................ 177
Kalpana Barhwal Hota, Sunil Kumar Hota and Shashi Bala Singh
13 Stress and Memory: from Mechanisms to Long-Lasting
Consequences............................................................................................ 191
Harmen J Krugers and Marian Joels
14 Estrogen-Mediated Neuroprotection: Hope to Combat
Neuronal Degeneration and Synaptic Plasticity Post-menopause ....... 203
Raj D. Mehra, Mukesh K. Varshney and Pavan Kumar
15 Potential Therapeutic Targets for Improving Memory
Impairments and Dementia: Clues Obtained from
Memory-Enhanced Mice ......................................................................... 219
Shogo Endo
16 Potential Beneficial Effects of a Diet with Walnuts in Aging
and Alzheimer’s Disease .......................................................................... 239
Abha Chauhan and Ved Chauhan
17 Smart Dietary Interventions and Prevention of Cognitive
Decline with Aging ................................................................................... 253
S. Asha Devi
18 Herbal Cognitive Enhancers: New Developments and
Challenges for Therapeutic Applications ............................................... 267
Andrea Zangara and Keith A. Wesnes
Index .................................................................................................................. 291
Contributors
Lorena Arranz Departamento de Fisiología (Fisiología Animal II), Facultad de
Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, España
e-mail: [email protected]
Maheep Bhatnagar Faculty of Science, University College of Science, MLS
University, Udaipur 313001, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Sasanka Chakrabarti Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Post-Graduate
Medical Education and Research, Kolkata, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Abha Chauhan NYS Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities,
1050 Forest Hill Road, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
Ved Chauhan NYS Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities,
1050 Forest Hill Road, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Asha Devi Laboratory of Gerontology, Department of Zoology, Bangalore
University, Bangalore 560056, Karnataka, India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Shogo Endo Aging Regulation Research Team, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of
Gerontology, Itabashi, Tokyo 173-0015, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]
Mónica De la Fuente Departamento de Fisiología (Fisiología Animal II), Facul-
tad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040 Madrid, España
e-mail: [email protected]
Akash Gautam Brain Research Centre, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005,
India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
ix
xx Contributors
Mahdi Hasan Department of Anatomy, CSM Medical University, Lucknow
226003, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Kalpana Barhwal Hota Department of Cognitive Sciences, High Altitude
Physiology Division, Defence Institute of High Altitude Research, C/o-56 APO,
Leh, Ladakh, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Sunil Kumar Hota Department of Cognitive Sciences, High Altitude Physiology
Division, Defence Institute of High Altitude Research, C/o-56 APO, Leh, Ladakh,
India
e-mail: [email protected]
Yasuyuki Ishikawa Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology
(CREST), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi, 332-0012,
Japan
Laboratory of Functional Neuroscience, Nara Institute of Science and Technology,
8916-5, Takayama, Ikoma, Nara 630-0192, Japan
Anita Jagota Neurobiology and Molecular Chronobiology laboratory, Depart-
ment of Animal Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hy-
derabad 500046, India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Ayushi Jain Faculty of Science, University College of Science, MLS University,
Udaipur 313001, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Neha Jaiswal Faculty of Science, University College of Science, MLS Univer-
sity, Udaipur 313001, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Marian Joels Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, Division of Neu-
roscience, UMC Utrecht, Rudolf Magnus Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Sunil C. Kaul National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology
(AIST), Central 4, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8562, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]
Gurcharan Kaur Department of Biotechnology, Guru Nanak Dev University,
Amritsar, Punjab, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Masami Kojima Bio-interface Research Group, Health Research Inst., National
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 1-8-31, Midorio-
ka, Ikeda, Osaka, 563-8577, Japan
e-mail: [email protected]
Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science
and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi, 332-0012, Japan
Contributors xxii
Arpita Konar Brain Research Centre, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Lab-
oratory, Department of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Harmen J. Krugers Swammerdam Institute of Life Sciences, Center for Neuro-
science, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]
Pavan Kumar Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
New Delhi 110029, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Debomoy K. Lahiri Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatric Research,
Indiana University School of Medicine, 791 Union Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46202,
USA
e-mail: [email protected]
Sukhwinder S. Lakhman Department of Pharmaceutical, Social and Adminis-
trative Sciences, DYC School of Pharmacy, Buffalo, USA
Abbas A. Mahdi Department of Biochemistry, CSM Medical University, Luc-
know 226003, India
Raj D. Mehra Department of Anatomy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
New Delhi 110029, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Kalluri Subba Rao Centers for Biotechnology and Innovative Research, Insti-
tute of Science and Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyder-
abad 500085, India
Chavi Sharma Faculty of Science, University College of Science, MLS Univer-
sity, Udaipur 313001, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Shashi Bala Singh Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences (DIPAS),
Defence R & D Organisation, Lucknow Road, Timarpur, Delhi 110054, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Maitrayee Sinha Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Post-Graduate Medi-
cal Education and Research, Kolkata, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Pooja Suvalka Faculty of Science, University College of Science, MLS Univer-
sity, Udaipur 313001, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Umakanta Swain School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad Hyder-
abad 500046, India
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
