Kn 410 Exam 1

Front 1

Who holds the record for human longevity?

Back 1

Jeanne Louise Calment

Front 2

What is the record (years and days) for human longevity?

Back 2

122 years and 164 days

Front 3

Who is presently the oldest living woman and what is her age (years and days)?

Back 3

Misawo Okawa
114 years and 350 days
(Check day of test)

Front 4

Who is presently the oldest living man and what is his age (years and days)?

Back 4

Jiroemon Kimura
115 years and 305 days
(Check day of test)

Front 5

Define gerontology and list the objectives of the field.

Back 5

A multidisciplinary field of inquiry that includes the biological, psychological, sociological, health and economic aspects of aging.
Objectives: the elimination of premature disability and death; characterization of the mechanisms that regulate longevity and aging

Front 6

Define geriatrics.

Back 6

The branch of medicine focused on prevention and treatment of diseases of older adults.

Front 7

Describe what distinguishes age-dependent diseases from age-related diseases.

Back 7

Age-dependent disease is the pathogensis that involves basic aging mechanisms.
Age-related disease is related to chronological age, not necessarily related to aging mechanisms.

Front 8

Define aging and explain the meaning of each of the characteristics associated with the functional and structural changes that accompant aging.

Back 8

The time-independent series of cumulative, progressive, intrinsic and deleterious functional and structural changes that usually begin to manifest themselves at reproductive maturity and eventually culminate in death.
Cumulative: the effects increase and the aggregate effect is death.
Deleterious: the effect is to always reduce function.
Progressive: the effects occur gradually.
Intrinsic: the effects do not result from modifiable enviromental agents.

Front 9

Define senescence.

Back 9

The processes that give rise to changes in gene expression patterns (molecular signature) and/or physiological biomarkers from those consistent with health and somatic maintenance to patterns associated with aging and failure to maintain the soma.

Front 10

Provide a one or two sentence statement, with which you may or may not necessarily agree, that supports why aging must not, by default, consider time as a dependent variable.

Back 10

Possible talking points:
-Biological clock versus sidereal/solar clock
- Units: transcription cycles vs. time (light-dark cycles)
- Circadean rhythms
- Reproductive senescence (murine) is partly attributable to aging of elements of the neuroendocrine system (biological clock) due to the cumulative estradiol exposure
- Weak correlations between measures of chronological age and function

Front 11

Explain what a biological clock is and briefly describe how it works.

Back 11

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Front 12

Briefly explain why the results of Mobbs and Finch (1992) are consistent with cumulative exposure to estradiol being responsible for aging, or senescence of the reproductive system of female mice.

Back 12

?

Front 13

Define and be able to distinguish lifespan, healthy lifespan, healthspan, senescent span and health.

Back 13

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Front 14

Describe what a population pyramid is, what kind of information it can provide, in general, and the type of information it can provide about "aging" in particular.

Back 14

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Front 15

List the factors that have contributed to the changes in population aging in the US during the 20th century.

Back 15

Decreased fertility rate, decreased crude death rate, increased life expectancy.

Front 16

Explain why population pyramids provide little information about population aging,

Back 16

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Front 17

Explain why a constant likelihood of death would imply that the odds of death are not related to age.

Back 17

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Front 18

Sketch and label a survival curve that has the characteristics of an aging population. Explain why a survival curve having this general shape is predictable based on our definition of aging.

Back 18

?

Front 19

Distinguish a biomarker of age from a biomarker of aging.

Back 19

A biomarker of age is an indication of a biological (physiological) age. A biomarker of aging is an indicator of the transition from a state of high somatic maintenance and function to a state of lowered somatic maintenance and fuction.

Front 20

Define biological age.

Back 20

Biological age is a instantaneous location of an organism in its trajectory from birth to death.

Front 21

List the key characteristics of a biomarker of aging and explain why each is considered "key."

Back 21

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Front 22

Explain what telomeres are and what function(s) they serve.

Back 22

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Front 23

Who is Leonard Hayflick and for what discovery, which carries his name, is known?

Back 23

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Front 24

List the factors that affect telomere length.

Back 24

Species, tissues, cells, chromosomes, individuals, environmental factors.

Front 25

Describe the evidence suggesting that the rate of telomere shortening in birds is related to lifespan.

Back 25

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Front 26

Draft a personal statement regarding the role of telomeres in human health, disease and longevity.

Back 26

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Front 27

Describe "natural selection."

Back 27

A basic mechanism of evolution, passively screens traits for those that enhance the fitness of the individual, and determines how common traits are in a population.

Front 28

From the standpoint of evolution, explain what is meant by "fitness."

Back 28

The probabilty of surving to reproduce, and higher reproductive success translates to superior fitness.

Front 29

Explain, from the standpoint of natural selection, why Weismann's proposal of a genetic program specifying the aging and death of an organism does not make sense.

Back 29

?

Front 30

Who proposed the "mutation accumlation theory" of aging and what is the basis of the theory?

Back 30

Peter Brian Medawar.
?

Front 31

What is meant by the term "pleiotropy"?

Back 31

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Front 32

Who proposed the "antagonistic pleiotropy theory" of aging and what is the basis of the theory?

Back 32

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Front 33

What is p53? What is its (main) function and what will trigger its action?

Back 33

p53 is a regulator of the four phases of the cell cycle, tumor suppressor gene, and protects against cancer by preventing abnormal cellular proliferation.
p53 is triggered in repsone to stress.

Front 34

Discuss the work of Tyner et al. (2000; slides 8-10) from the standpoint of p53 being antagonistically pleiotropic.

Back 34

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Front 35

Who proposed the "disposable soma" of aging and what is the basis of the theory?

Back 35

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Front 36

What are the possible effects of a single amino acid being replaced in a DNA molecule?

Back 36

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Front 37

Describe the work (methods and outcomes) of Rose (1984) and the key life history events upon which the experiments were focused.

Back 37

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Front 38

According to the disposable some theory of aging, what is the manner in which an organism adapts "in a manner profitable to itself" and, consequently, is naturally selected?

Back 38

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Front 39

List the three, testable predictions that follow from the disposable soma theory and the data that either support or refute the predictions.

Back 39

- Germ line cells have a greater/higher quality maintenance capacity than somatic cells
- Long-lives organsims have more efficient somatic cell maintenance than short-lives organisms
- Within major taxonomies there should be an indirect relationship between the maximum lifespan and reproductive potential

Front 40

Summarize the methods and results of Bauer et al. (2006). Based only on the results in paper, what are some possible implications of the findings?

Back 40

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Front 41

Summarize the key findings of the work by McCay et al. (1935).

Back 41

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Front 42

Define caloric restriction.

Back 42

- Reducing levels of IGF-1
- Preventing oxidative damage

Front 43

What is the implication of the apparent universality of the effects of caloric restriction (i.e., between-species similarity) with regard to the underlying mechanisms by which it works?

Back 43

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Front 44

Duscuss the evidence that supports the contention that caloric restriction should work in non-human promates as well as humans.

Back 44

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