Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Genes Linked to Aging Brain
Out of a random population of 1,129 people from Mexican families of ages 18-83, scientist tested neurocognitive abilities which are linked to memory, attention, language, learning,reasoning, solving problems, etc., along with white matter. What was found was that there were genes associated with the rate the brain ages. The researchers made sure they sampled individuals who came from large families so they could observe the genetic factors in the study that were associated with age. The researchers also looked into the genetic factors that caused brain deterioration and the decrease in white matter. Since the researchers looked into one set of ethnicities, I wonder if there are any differences with other ethnicities and the associated genetic factors.
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I wonder what made them choose Mexicans rather than any other nationality. Was there studies involved that led them to choose them specifically?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jazmyne. I wonder what made the scientists choose that ethnicity to study specifically. I mean, I know that Texas has a large Hispanic population, but I would imagine that scientists would want to study many different ethnic groups.
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ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that since they only ran the test on one ethnicity, that they couldn't say whether Mexicans have a good or bad brain deterioration rate (aka a good or bad deterioration gene)? I'm with Jazmyne and Lauren though, what possible preliminary findings were there that caused them to do the research on Mexicans over any other ethnicity?
ReplyDeleteThe study was done by the Texas Biomedical Research Institute at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio. They wanted to use large human pedigrees (I assume from local participants) and Hispanic families (at least traditionally and I guess in actuality in this case) fit the bill. They studied 1,129 people from 30 large extended families. This is just laying the groundwork to see if it could even be demonstrated that age-related brain function decline is genetically influenced.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, in chemistry seminar we talked about how scientist typically pick white males to run studies on. Least they are thinking outside the box, I would like to see how brain function vary between ethnicity and region.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if enviornmental factors were also taken into consideration in this study, such as drinking or doing drugs. But i think it is a clever study to focus on the largest ethnicity in the region for this study, especially in San Antonio.
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