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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2632
igaa057.2632
Abstracts
Session 6515 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Modulation of the Aging Drosophila Brain and Susceptibility to Neurodegeneration
Bonini Nancy  
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”738 738
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Human neurodegenerative diseases, like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia, are late-onset progressive neurodegenerative disorders for which few cures or treatments are available. To develop new insight, we have been using the model organism Drosophila. We can re-create disease-associated protein toxicity in the fly brain, and then take advantage of the powerful molecular genetic approaches to define pathways and mechanisms. The fly is allowing us to reveal mechanistic understanding that we can then extend to the human condition. These studies have highlighted multiple novel pathways involved in longterm integrity of the brain. Among these processes, we have defined epigenetic pathways critical for longterm brain health. These pathways typically converge on stress pathway players, highlighting that boosting the ability of the nervous system to combat stress may help promote healthful brain aging and resistance to degenerative disease pathways.