Brain Aging: Models, Methods, and Mechanisms covers the current research in this rapidly expanding field. It reviews critical studies of brain aging in new animal models, as well as advances in brain imaging techniques that permit investigations in aging humans with increasingly higher resolution.

The book includes critical analyses of the distinct methodological challenges inherent in investigating the aging nervous system, and addresses data and mechanisms, as well as models and methods that are key to the study of aging. Each chapter is extensively referenced and highlights experimental concerns that are magnified or unique to the aging brain.

Features:

• Emphasizes fundamental age-related changes in the brain, rather than pathological neurodegenerative disease
• Explores insights provided by high resolution and functional brain imaging in humans as well as the experimental study of animal models (including rodents and primates)
• Looks at unbiased methods for quantifying changes in the brain and stereological methods for clarifying the extent and nature of anatomical changes
• Discusses structural and functional changes at the molecular, systems, and cognitive levels
• Considers the challenges inherent in studies of aging

Contents

Assessing Cognitive Aging

1. Changes in Cognitive Function in Human Aging
2. Successful vs. Unsuccessful Aging in Rhesus Monkeys
3. Neuropsychology of Cognitive Aging in Rodents

Quantifying Aging-Related Changes in the Brain

4. Design-Based Stereology in Brain Aging Research
5. The Effects of Normal Aging on Nerve Fibers and Neuroglia in the Central Nervous System
6. Neurogenesis in the Adult and Aging Brain
7. Expression Profile Analysis of Brain Aging

Assessing Functional Changes in the Aging Nervous System

8. Subtle Alterations in Glutamatergic Synapses Underlie the Aging-Related Declines in Hippocampal Functions
9. Assessment of Second Messenger Function in the Hippocampus of Aged Rats with Cognitive Impairment
10. Neurophysiology of Old Neurons and Synapses
11. Imaging Cognition in the Aging Human Brain

Mechanisms Contributing to Brain Aging

12. Regulation of Cerebrovascular Aging
13. Stress and Glucocorticoid Contributions to Normal and Pathological Aging
14. Altered Calcium Homeostasis in Old Neurons
15. Oxidative Stress and the Aging Brain: from Theory to Prevention

Index

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ORDER NOW Brain Aging Models, Methods, and Mechanisms edited by David R. Riddle 2007 • 408 pages • $148.95 + shipping Texas residents please add 6.75 % sales tax