Christoph Thaiss, PhD

Counteracting age-associated cognitive decline via gut-brain signaling

Aging is associated with a decline in memory function, which greatly affects the quality of life of a large proportion of older individuals. The rate of cognitive decline is highly heterogeneous, with some individuals retaining fully intact memories at old age, while others lose the ability to participate in public life due to a dramatic inability to form and recall memories. New strategies to understand and counteract the age-associated decline in memory function are thus urgently needed. This study will explore the hypothesis that age-associated cognitive decline is not solely brain-autonomous but regulated by body-brain pathways originating in the gastrointestinal tract. This approach provides a framework for how age-related diseases of the brain may be treated by means of peripheral intervention from the gastrointestinal tract.