1. Select an organ system in the body and address the following questions. What
ID: 267117 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Select an organ system in the body and address the following questions.
What is the normal function of the selected organ system (include at least two functions).Discuss at least three aspects in which aging affects your selected organ system.What actions can be done in order to delay the signs of aging in your selected organ system.
2.Recent studies have implicated the hypothalamus as the region of the brain that may control the aging process. Explain the study conducted to find these results in at least five sentences.
Explanation / Answer
Answer a) Lungs: Normal function helps us in breathing.
The effects of aging on the respiratory system are similar to those that occur in other organs: maximum function gradually declines. Age-related changes in the lungs include
Decreases in peak airflow and gas exchange
Decreases in measures of lung function such as vital capacity (the maximum amount of air that can be breathed out following a maximum inhalation)
The weakening of the respiratory muscles
The decline in the effectiveness of lung defense mechanisms
In healthy people, these age-related changes seldom lead to symptoms. These changes contribute somewhat to an older person's reduced ability to do vigorous exercise, especially intense aerobic exercise, such as running, biking, and mountain climbing. However, age-related decreases in heart function may be a more important cause of such limitations.
Older people are at higher risk of developing pneumonia after bacterial or viral infections. Thus, vaccines for respiratory infections such as influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia are particularly important for older people.
Importantly, age-related changes in the lungs compound the effects of heart and lung diseases the person may have, especially those caused by the destructive effects of smoking.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been recently characterized as a disease of accelerated lung aging. The prevalence of COPD is age-dependent suggesting an intimate relationship between the pathogenesis of COPD and aging. Lung function decline, the hallmark feature of COPD evolution, is more prominent with increasing age and this decline is greater in smoking individuals. One of the major goals of COPD pharmacotherapy is the development of drugs that would be able to result in a decrease of the decline in lung function over years. However, till nowadays smoking cessation is the only known intervention which is able to decelerate lung function decline. Several mechanisms of aging, including oxidative stress, inflammation and telomere shortening have been shown to be implicated in COPD. Furthermore, numerous anti-aging molecules, including sirtuins and Nrf-2 are reduced, and pathways such as mTOR and genes such as Klotho have also been shown to be abnormal in the lungs of COPD patients. The above mechanisms have been associated with the accelerated lung aging in COPD patients. Numerous therapeutic interventions have been studied in an attempt to reverse accelerated lung aging, and some of them have already been tested in clinical trials.
Answer 2)
a) To find out how the hypothalamus might affect aging, Dr. Cai decided to study hypothalamic inflammation by focusing on a protein complex called NF-?B (nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells). "Inflammation involves hundreds of molecules, and NF-?B sits right at the center of that regulatory map," he said.
In the current study, Dr. Cai and his team demonstrated that activating the NF-?B pathway in the hypothalamus of mice significantly accelerated the development of aging.
b)When the researchers injected GnRH into the hypothalamus of mice, it promoted neuron generation and decelerated aging.
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