Systemic determinants of brain health in ageing


Author: Eric E Smith1, Geert Jan Biessels2, Virginia Gao3, Rebecca F Gottesman4, Arthur Liesz5,6, Neal S Parikh3, Costantino Iadecola7

Affiliation: <sup>1</sup> Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. eesmith@ucalgary.ca.
<sup>2</sup> Department of Neurology, UMC Utrecht Brain Center, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.
<sup>3</sup> Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
<sup>4</sup> National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD, USA.
<sup>5</sup> Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research, University Medical Center Munich, Munich, Germany.
<sup>6</sup> Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy), Munich, Germany.
<sup>7</sup> Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA. coi2001@med.cornell.edu.

Conference/Journal: Nat Rev Neurol
Date published: 2024 Oct 7
Other:
  Special Notes: doi: 10.1038/s41582-024-01016-z.   ,  Word Count: 157  
    Preservation of brain health is a worldwide priority. The traditional view is that the major threats to the ageing brain lie within the brain itself. Consequently, therapeutic approaches have focused on protecting the brain from these presumably intrinsic pathogenic processes. However, an increasing body of evidence has unveiled a previously under-recognized contribution of peripheral organs to brain dysfunction and damage. Thus, in addition to the well-known impact of diseases of the heart and endocrine glands on the brain, accumulating data suggest that dysfunction of other organs, such as gut, liver, kidney and lung, substantially affects the development and clinical manifestation of age-related brain pathologies. In this Review, a framework is provided to indicate how organ dysfunction can alter brain homeostasis and promote neurodegeneration, with a focus on dementia. We delineate the associations of subclinical dysfunction in specific organs with dementia risk and provide suggestions for public health promotion and clinical management.


PMID: 39375564 DOI: 10.1038/s41582-024-01016-z