Age-related Changes in the Nigrostriatal System

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Abstract
These data support the view that the rate at which an organism ages is a summation of factors throughout life. While some cells seem to remain stable or even grow with age, others show significant regression. In this regard, different populations of striatal neurons show unique and different patterns of growth and development with advancing age. While aspiny II neurons show peak growth by 10 months of age, aspiny I and medium spiny I cells do not reach a growth peak until much later in life. In addition, our data support the notion that the occurrence and severity of structural changes in the aged brain are not distributed homogeneously and that many of the so-called "age-related" changes that were once generalized to the entire brain are brain-region, cell-type, and species specific. Furthermore, our data reinforces the concept that the correlation of structure and function is central to the analysis of an aging population because considerable differences may be found in data based on functionally impaired and unimpaired groups.