My 1994 Clinical Neurology of aging and a couple more recent
sources says "Ellis (1920, 1921) and Hall, Miller, and Corsellis
(1975) have reported age-related loss of Purkinje cells in the
cerebellum that according to Hall et al. (1975) occurs at a rate of
2.5% per decade. More recently, Scheibel (1996) confirmed these
findings. Purkinje cell loss in rabbits is highly correlated with
poorer learning (Woodruff-Pak & Sheffeld, 1987). Neurobiological
research on the aging cerebellum indicates that the mossy fibre
“learning” input but not the climbing fibre “teaching” input
functioned less efficiently in old age. Direct tests of this
hypotheses using microstimulation of mossy fibres in older rabbits as
a CS supported the notion that the learning input is integrated less
well in the cerebellum (Woodruff-Pak et al., 1988)."
Can anyone
1) send me the Scheibel article as I cannot get it in my library
2) Send me any more information on age-related cell loss in the
cerebellum and,
3) the loss of cells in the cerebellum relative to other brian
regions...for example I dug out this sentence from somewhere and wish
to confirm it...
The greatest loss of neurons (Haug et al. 1983) and reduction in brain
volume (Coffey et al. 1992) during aging is seen in the frontal lobes
(but equally also in subcortical structures, the thalamus, the basal
ganglia, and the cerebellum (Haug et al., 1983))
It is the verification of the second part of this sentence that I
am interested in. Does anyone have the full reference for this Haug
article and could you possibly send it to me.
I look forward to your reply.
Gratefully yours,
Mike Hogan, PhD fellow.
