alterations in nitric oxide synthase in the aged cns在中枢神经系统改变一氧化氮合酶.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity Volume 2012, Article ID 718976, 7 pages doi:10.1155/2012/718976 Review Article Alterations in Nitric Oxide Synthase in the Aged CNS Junyang Jung, Changhyun Na, and Youngbuhm Huh Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Heoki-Dong 1, Dongdaemun-Gu, Seoul 130-701, Republic of Korea Correspondence should be addressed to Youngbuhm Huh, ybhuh@khu.ac.kr Received 13 February 2012; Revised 3 May 2012; Accepted 5 June 2012 Academic Editor: Marcos Dias Pereira Copyright © 2012 Junyang Jung et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Aging is associated with neuronal loss, gross weight reduction of the brain, and glial proliferation in the cortex, all of which lead to functional changes in the brain. It is known that oxidative stress is a critical factor in the pathogenesis of aging; additionally, growing evidence suggests that excessive nitric oxide (NO) production contributes to the aging process. However, it is still unclear how NO plays a role in the aging process. This paper describes age-related changes in the activity of NADPH-diaphorase (NADPH- d), a marker for neurons containing nitric oxide synthase (NOS), in many CNS regions. Understanding these changes may provide a novel perspective in identifying the aging mechanism. 1. Introduction aging process in the CNS [1]. Mitochondria and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) are two major sources of free radicals During normal agi