Track lactic acid ‘to discover brain age’

In fact,the finding came when Jaime Ross from the Institute and colleagues investigated how ageing is affected by damage to the DNA in mouse mitochondria,the energy-producing part of cells.

The team modified mitochondrial DNA,producing a mouse strain that aged prematurely. In these mice and healthy controls,the time it took for levels of lactic acid in the brain to double correlated with how fast they aged.

Lactic acid is a normal product of metabolism,so Ross’s team speculated that age-damaged mitochondria could be affecting metabolic processes. Indeed,the brains of both types of mice showed damage to the genes responsible for lactate regulation.

The findings have been published in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ journal.