Congratulations to Daniel Adekunbi, PhD on his publication in Neurobiology of Aging!
A new publication from Daniel Adekunbi, PhD, shows that aging is associated with a significant decline in mitochondrial bioenergetics in the brain in a non-human primate model of aging. This loss of energetics is associated with a similar decline in walking speed with age, highlighting a potential mechanism for increased frailty and loss of function with age. Dr. Adekunbi is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Adam Salmon, PhD at the Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.
Sex-specific decline in prefrontal cortex mitochondrial bioenergetics in aging baboons correlates with walking speed
Daniel A Adekunbi, Hillary F Huber, Gloria A Benavides, Ran Tian, Cun Li, Peter W Nathanielsz, Jianhua Zhang, Victor Darley-Usmar, Laura A Cox, Adam B Salmon
Neurobiol Aging. 2025 Mar 24:151:1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2025.03.010. Online ahead of print.
Abstract:
Mitochondria play a crucial role in brain homeostasis and changes in mitochondrial bioenergetics are linked to age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. We investigated changes in the activities of the electron transport chain (ETC) complexes in normally aging baboon brains and determined how these changes relate to donor sex, morning cortisol levels, and walking speed. We assessed mitochondrial bioenergetics from archived prefrontal cortex (PFC) tissues from a large cohort (60 individuals) of well-characterized aging baboons (6.6-22.8 years, approximately equivalent to 26.4-91.2 human years). Aging was associated with a decline in mitochondrial ETC complexes in the PFC, which was more pronounced when normalized for citrate synthase activity, suggesting that the decline is predominantly driven by changes in the specific activity of individual complexes rather than global changes in mitochondrial content. When donor sex was used as a covariate, we found that ETC activity was preserved with age in females and declined in males. Males had higher activities of each individual ETC complex and greater lactate dehydrogenase activity at a given age relative to females. Circulating cortisol negatively correlated with walking speed when male and female data were combined. We also observed a robust positive predictive relationship between walking speed and respiration linked to complexes I, III, and IV in males but not in females. This data reveals a link between frailty and PFC bioenergetic function and highlights a potential molecular mechanism for sexual dimorphism in brain resilience.
Keywords: Aging; Baboons; Cortisol; Mitochondrial respiration; Prefrontal cortex; Walking speed.