Modeling human age-associated increase in Gadd45γ expression leads to spatial recognition memory impairments in young adult mice

Trajectory of Cognitive Decline Across Different Racial/Ethnic Groups: The Role of Edentulism

This study examines whether age-related cognitive decline varies by race/ethnicity and how edentulism moderates these effects. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (2006-2020), including 23,669 respondents aged 51 and above across 189,352 person-wave observations were analyzed. Of all respondents, 13.4% were edentulous at baseline, with 65.4% identified as non-Hispanic White, 20.5% non-Hispanic Black, and 14.18% Hispanic. Results from linear mixed-effect models indicated that compared to non-Hispanic Whites, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black participants exhibited lower baseline cognition scores but slower cognitive decline with age. For edentulous Hispanic participants, this slower rate of decline was attenuated by 0.03 units per year (95% CI: -0.06, -0.01, p = .049). The findings highlighted the need for targeted interventions and policies to improve oral health, particularly for Hispanic populations. Addressing oral health disparities could help mitigate cognitive decline in this group and reduce cognitive health disparities across racial/ethnic groups.

Biphasic Npas4 expression promotes inhibitory plasticity and suppression of fear memory consolidation in mice

Long-term memories are believed to be encoded by unique transcriptional signatures in the brain. The expression of immediate early genes (IEG) promotes structural and molecular changes required for memory consolidation. Recent evidence has shown that the brain is equipped with mechanisms that not only promote, but actively constrict memory formation. However, it remains unknown whether IEG expression may play a role in memory suppression. Here we uncovered a novel function of the IEG neuronal PAS domain protein 4 (Npas4), as an inducible memory suppressor gene of highly salient aversive experiences. Using a contextual fear conditioning paradigm, we found that low stimulus salience leads to monophasic Npas4 expression, while highly salient learning induces a biphasic expression of Npas4 in the hippocampus. The later phase requires N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor activity and is independent of dopaminergic neurotransmission. Our in vivo pharmacological and genetic manipulation experiments suggested that the later phase of Npas4 expression restricts the consolidation of a fear memory and promote behavioral flexibility, by facilitating fear extinction and the contextual specificity of fear responses. Moreover, immunofluorescence and electrophysiological analysis revealed a concomitant increase in synaptic input from cholecystokinin (CCK)-expressing interneurons. Our results demonstrate how salient experiences evoke unique temporal patterns of IEG expression that fine-tune memory consolidation. Moreover, our study provides evidence for inducible gene expression associated with memory suppression as a possible mechanism to balance the consolidation of highly salient memories, and thereby to evade the formation of maladaptive behavior.

Assessing cognitive decline in the aging brain: lessons from rodent and human studies

As life expectancy continues to increase worldwide, age-related dysfunction will largely impact our societies in the future. Aging is well established to promote the deterioration of cognitive function and is the primary risk factor for the development of prevalent neurological disorders. Even in the absence of dementia, age-related cognitive decline impacts specific types of memories and brain structures in humans and animal models. Despite this, preclinical and clinical studies that investigate age-related changes in brain physiology often use largely different methods, which hinders the translational potential of findings. This review seeks to integrate what is known about age-related changes in the brain with analogue cognitive tests used in humans and rodent studies, ranging from "pen and paper" tests to virtual-reality-based paradigms. Finally, we draw parallels between the behavior paradigms used in research compared to the enrollment into clinical trials that aim to study age-related cognitive decline.

Gadd45 in Neuronal Development, Function, and Injury

The growth arrest and DNA damage-inducible (Gadd) 45 proteins have been associated with numerous cellular mechanisms including cell cycle control, DNA damage sensation and repair, genotoxic stress, neoplasia, and molecular epigenetics. The genes were originally identified in in vitro screens of irradiation- and interleukin-induced transcription and have since been implicated in a host of normal and aberrant central nervous system processes. These include early and postnatal development, injury, cancer, memory, aging, and neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease states. The proteins act through a variety of molecular signaling cascades including the MAPK cascade, cell cycle control mechanisms, histone regulation, and epigenetic DNA demethylation. In this review, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the literature implicating each of the three members of the Gadd45 family in these processes.

Regulation of neuronal plasticity by the DNA repair associated Gadd45 proteins

Neurons respond rapidly to extracellular stimuli by activating signaling pathways that modulate the function of already synthetized proteins. Alternatively, signal transduction to the cell nucleus induces de novo synthesis of proteins required for long-lasting adaptations. These complementary strategies are necessary for neuronal plasticity processes that underlie, among other functions, the formation of memories. Nonetheless, it is still not fully understood how the coupling between different stimuli and the activity of constitutively and/or de novo expressed proteins gate neuronal plasticity. Here, we discuss the molecular functions of the Growth Arrest and DNA Damage 45 (Gadd45) family of proteins in neuronal adaptation. We highlight recent findings that indicate that Gadd45 family members regulate this function through multiple cellular processes (e.g., DNA demethylation, gene expression, RNA stability, MAPK signaling). We then summarize the regulation of Gadd45 expression in neurons and put forward the hypothesis that the constitutive and neuronal activity-induced pools of Gadd45 proteins have distinct and complementary roles in modulating neuronal plasticity. Therefore, we propose that Gadd45 proteins are essential for brain function and their dysfunction might underlie pathophysiological conditions such as neuropsychiatric disorders.

Multi-Modal Fusion Emotion Recognition Method of Speech Expression Based on Deep Learning

The redundant information, noise data generated in the process of single-modal feature extraction, and traditional learning algorithms are difficult to obtain ideal recognition performance. A multi-modal fusion emotion recognition method for speech expressions based on deep learning is proposed. Firstly, the corresponding feature extraction methods are set up for different single modalities. Among them, the voice uses the convolutional neural network-long and short term memory (CNN-LSTM) network, and the facial expression in the video uses the Inception-Res Net-v2 network to extract the feature data. Then, long and short term memory (LSTM) is used to capture the correlation between different modalities and within the modalities. After the feature selection process of the chi-square test, the single modalities are spliced to obtain a unified fusion feature. Finally, the fusion data features output by LSTM are used as the input of the classifier LIBSVM to realize the final emotion recognition. The experimental results show that the recognition accuracy of the proposed method on the MOSI and MELD datasets are 87.56 and 90.06%, respectively, which are better than other comparison methods. It has laid a certain theoretical foundation for the application of multimodal fusion in emotion recognition.

Engram reactivation during memory retrieval predicts long-term memory performance in aged mice

Age-related cognitive decline preferentially targets long-lasting episodic memories that require intact hippocampal function. Memory traces (or engrams) are believed to be encoded within the neurons activated during learning (neuronal ensembles), and recalled by reactivation of the same population. However, whether engram reactivation dictates memory performance late in life is not known. Here, we labeled neuronal ensembles formed during object location recognition learning in the dentate gyrus, and analyzed the reactivation of this population during long-term memory recall in young adult, cognitively impaired- and unimpaired-aged mice. We found that reactivation of memory-encoding neuronal ensembles at long-term memory recall was disrupted in impaired but not unimpaired-aged mice. Furthermore, we showed that the memory performance in the aged population correlated with the degree of engram reactivation at long-term memory recall. Overall, our data implicates recall-induced engram reactivation as a prediction factor of memory performance in aging. Moreover, our findings suggest impairments in neuronal ensemble stabilization and/or reactivation as an underlying mechanism in age-dependent cognitive decline.