Scientists discover the genetic key why women’s brain ages better

Beauty and brain that age slowly – turns out that women can have them all!

Men have an X chromosome and a Y, while women have two X chromosomes. Scientists have long rejected one of the female X chromosomes as mostly inactive, doing nothing for anything.

A new study reports that this dormant chromosome actually wakes up later in life and returns the genes that keep the brain healthy, which may be why women tend to maintain their cognitive skills longer than men.

Researchers from UC San Francisco found that when female engineering mice genetically reach the equivalent of about 65 human years, their “silent” chromosome begs to express genes that increase brain ties and increase recognition.

“In typical aging, women have a brain that looks younger, with fewer cognitive deficits than men,” said Dr. Dena Dubal, a professor of UCSF neurology. “These results show that Silent X in women actually reused late in life, surely helping to slow down the cognitive fall.”

Dubal team Mati The expression of the gene in the hippocampus, the structure of the brain responsible for learning and memory.

The researchers were surprised that inactive chromosome x expressed about 20 genes in several types of hypocampus cells. Many genes are involved in brain development and intellectual disability.

“Aging had awakened X sleep,” Dubal said.

“We immediately thought this could explain how the women’s brain remains resilient in typical aging because men would not have this X extra,” added Margaret Gadek, a UCSF graduate student and the first author of the work.

UCSF researchers suspect PLP1 may be key. Genes codes for myelin primary protein, which isolates nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord.

Old female rats had more PLP1 in their hypocampus than old masculine rats. When the team artificially expressed PLP1 on the hypocampus of both sexes, the rats performed better in the teaching and memory tests.

An analysis of the donated brain tissue by older men and women confirmed that only women had set up PLP1.

UCSF findings were published this week in Science Avers magazine.

Dubal and her colleagues are exploring if the second X is active in older women and how this long -forgotten chromosome can renew the aging brain.

“Recognition is one of our biggest biomedical problems, but things are variable in the aging brain, and the X chromosome can clearly teach us what is possible,” Dubal said. “Are there interventions that can strengthen genes like PLP1 from chromosome X to slow down the fall – for both women and men – while we get old?”