Fat droplets rise in one naked mole rat brain area’s immune cells
In a brain region called CA3, fat-droplet coverage of immune cells was 66% larger in middle-aged naked mole rats than in young animals.
Limit: Only 4 naked mole rats per age group were analyzed
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Researchers compared brain sections from eight naked mole rats and eight C57BL/6 mice in a cross-sectional animal study. Half of each species were young and half middle-aged: about four or 13 years for naked mole rats, and 26 or 52–54 weeks for mice.
They measured lipid droplets, small fat stores, in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory. Naked mole rats had greater droplet coverage in microglia, the brain’s immune cells, than mice. Coverage increased with age in naked mole rats in a hippocampal region called CA3, but not in mice. Droplet size in nerve cells did not change with age in naked mole rats. In mice, nerve-cell droplets were larger at middle age in CA3.
Why it matters
Fat accumulation in brain immune cells has been reported with aging and Alzheimer’s disease. The authors suggest that transferring fats from nerve cells to immune cells could help protect naked mole rat brains from damage and degeneration.
Caveats
This cross-sectional comparison did not track fat transfer between cells or test whether it protected the brain. Each age group contained four animals per species, and commonly used nerve-cell markers did not work properly in naked mole rats.
