Neurochemistry international
-
Neurochemical alterations of markers related to synaptic function are potential candidates for age-related impairment of brain function and cognition. The process of aging, including brain aging, can be counteracted to some degree by maintaining animals in long-term conditions of caloric restriction, or supplementing their diet with antioxidant substances. ⋯ The same dietary manipulations are also unable to counteract the derangement of the first step of the main biosynthetic pathway for polyamines, putative neuromodulators in the CNS, that occurs in the aged spinal cord. Some age-related alterations in the expression of different subunits of the NMDA-type glutamate receptors in some CNS regions of aged rats were instead, at least in some cases, counteracted by long-term dietary manipulation.