A rhesus monkey study has revealed which dendritic spines are lost with age, providing a new target for therapies to help prevent age-association cognitive impairment. It appears that it is the thin, dynamic spines in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which are key to learning new things, establishing rules, and planning, that are lost. Learning of a new task was correlated with both synapse density and average spine size, but was most strongly predicted by the head volume of thin spines. There was no correlation with size or density of the large, mushroom-shaped spines, which were very stable across age and probably mediate long-term memories, enabling the retention of expertise and skills learned early in life. There was no correlation with any of these spine characteristics once the task was learned. The findings underscore the importance of building skills and broad expertise when young.
One cause of cognitive decline with age
Reference
Dumitriu, D., Hao, J., Hara, Y., Kaufmann, J., Janssen, W. G. M., Lou, W., … Morrison, J. H. (2010). Selective Changes in Thin Spine Density and Morphology in Monkey Prefrontal Cortex Correlate with Aging-Related Cognitive Impairment. J. Neurosci., 30(22), 7507-7515. Retrieved from http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/30/22/7507
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