New Clues to Age-Related Cognitive Decline

Mounting evidence suggests that age-related cognitive decline is caused not by nerve cell death, as it is in Alzheimer’s disease, but from a disruption in synapses, the structures that allow a nerve cell to transmit a signal to other nerve cells. Demonstrating these synaptic disruptions in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, and linking such disruptions to synaptic health, has been challenging for scientists—until now.

Read more