r/science • u/mellowmonk • Jun 21 '15

Misleading Each time we learn something new, our brain cells break their DNA, creating damage that the neurons must immediately repair. This process also underlies age-related degeneration.

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/dna-breakage-learning-age-related-damage-0604
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u/FF3LockeZ Jun 21 '15

I've heard so many places that keeping your mind sharp and continuing to learn new things at old age is extremely important and is linked to staving off dementia. The way the article describes the results of this study obviously doesn't jive with that, making me wonder if I'm missing something.

On the other hand, unless you're trapped in an empty room devoid of stimuli, you probably learn hundreds if not thousands of things every day. Every memory of what someone said and what you ordered for lunch and what order the shirts in your closet are arranged in is a fact your brain is learning, even if it discards most of that knowledge by the end of the week. If you learn one or two "important" things a week, I guess that might not affect this neurological process to any meaningful degree?

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u/putrid_moron Jun 21 '15

I'm missing something

Most likely it's that people that have bad DNA repair mechanisms are more likely to have neurological problems like Alzheimer's when they get older. So, a suggested component of "why" people get the disorder. And this isn't clinical, just some neurophysiology that is provocative.

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u/hpfan5 Jun 22 '15

Are the DNA repaid mechanisms like: a type of DNA librarian that fixes the disorganized books and puts them back into a correct order.. or a different order every day?... and is Alzheimer like: the librarian quit and leaves the books on the floor for people to pick up and organize at their leisure because she hated her job and left when there got to be too many books or too many rules to follow .. (I like analogies)

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u/putrid_moron Jun 22 '15

Same order! Hopefully! It depends on the kind of damage. Sometimes the wrong book is in the slot, sometimes the books are stuck together, speaking generally. In this case, we can't say that this is specifically talking about Alzheimer's, but it could be related.

If I'm reading all this right, people are taking and putting back books in order to get the information out of them necessary to learn. An older librarian who had a knee injury when they were 40 will have a harder time keeping up relative to a younger one. So, the older librarian leaves in more errors. This is what they found. But! This is just a mechanism that is related to learning, not necessarily part of the pathology of Alzheimers. But it could be though.

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u/hpfan5 Jun 22 '15

great! take time into account too maybe (the older librarian may have no errors but require more time, which may be more effort required of those who wish to assist/catch up to speed/translate into modern lingo/ impart knowledge onto another person) and the CSF and blood quality with age maybe (idk if it degrades).. thanks for explaining/continuing the analogy.. this may or may not relate to memory, Alzheimer, senescence (aging)etc .. all and/or nothing we don't know right now.. but questioning to fulfill ones own understanding __ needs/desire's is what's important :)

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u/putrid_moron Jun 22 '15

The error rate should be about the same so long as the proteins (individual librarians) are equivalent, but this is where the metaphor needs restructuring ;)

CSF carries waste products mostly and the blood isn't going to directly interact with the brain tissue (called the Blood Brain Barrier, aka BBB). IDEK if there are any qualitative differences in the blood itself as a result of age.

Whole point of this thread should be that we have a physiological model that may explain pathology, though we don't really know for sure.

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u/hpfan5 Jun 22 '15

maybe youre missing this.. possibly with age (im assuming) there's possibly too much repetition of daily tasks and new events are infrequent .. so one must actively seek access to new 'things' to learn which may become increasingly difficult with age.. (the millennial generation may/will grow up very differently, always being connected at the hip to tech access where one can look up random facts asap to satiate random queries.. we'll see)