Lipofuscin in pyramidal neurons of the rat neocortex during aging

Lipofuscin is an intracellular lipopigment of lysosomal origin that accumulates throughout life in cells of low-renewing and non-renewing body tissues, which is currently often used as a biomarker of cellular aging. The aim of the work was to study the possibility of detecting lipofuscin in the pyramidal neurons of the rat brain using modern methods of confocal laser microscopy. The work was performed on frontal brain sections of mature male Wistar rats aged 60 days, 4-5 months and 18 months. It has been shown that lipofuscin is present in the pyramidal neurons of the neocortex in rats from an early age. During aging, lipofuscin granules are grouped without merging into a single cluster and occupy a significant volume of the cytoplasm of the neuron. The approaches used in the work make it possible to determine the size of individual granules and register emission spectra, as well as analyze the spatial organization of detectable clusters of lipofuscin granules. The previously unknown accumulation of lipofuscin in ependymocytes in aging animals needs further investigation.