Sali~a from healthy individuals and from patients with various diseases, between the ages of 10 to 90, were collected. The amylase and protein composition were correlated with age, sex and state of health. The results indicate that the specific activity of arnylase decreased with increase in age. Men synthesize and secrete greater amounts of protein and amylase than women. Total protein and alb...

The dendritic structures of 187 small supragranular pyramidal neurons of the posterior superior temporal gyrus were studied with rapid Golgi impregnations in postmortem samples from 10 men aged 21-71 years. The number of primary basilar dendritic branches, the total number of basilar dendritic endings, the total basilar dendritic length, the total number of visible basilar dendritic spines and ...

Using controlled experiments, we examine how individuals make choices when faced with multiple options. Choice tasks are designed to mimic the selection of health insurance, prescription drug, or retirement savings plans. In our experiment, available options can be objectively ranked allowing us to examine optimal decision making. First, the probability of a person selecting the optimal option ...

OBJECTIVE Although prior work has examined age-related changes to criterion placement and flexibility, no study tested these constructs through a paradigm that employs adaptive feedback to encourage specific criterion changes. The goal of this study was to assess age differences in how young and older adults adapt and shift criteria in recognition memory decisions based on trial-by-trial feedba...

Detection of mistuned partials in otherwise harmonic complex tones was investigated in naïve subjects of three different age groups. Signals were presented at constant sensation level to compensate for differences in hearing sensitivity and to specifically examine age-related changes in inharmonicity perception. Performance was measured under two conditions, monaural signal presentation and dic...

The elderly are more susceptible to infectious diseases. Mortality and morbidity from infections increase sharply over the age of 65 years. At the same time, the efficacy of vaccinations in the elderly is decreased. The elderly also have an increased incidence of cancer and inflammatory diseases. All the above indicate an age-related dysregulation of the immune system. Evidence suggests that th...

Analysis of a corpus of tens of thousands of blogs – incorporating close to 300 million words – indicates significant differences in writing style and content between male and female bloggers as well as among authors of different ages. Such differences can be exploited to determine an unknown author’s age and gender on the basis of a blog’s vocabulary.

Two articles in this issue of JASN seek to identify structural weaknesses that render glomeruli liable to failure. Hodgin et al.1 examine glomerular loss with aging and propose that a gradual reduction in the number of podocytes per unit glomerular volume reaches a point where it triggers glomerular failure. As glomeruli are lost, compensatory hypertrophy of those that remain leads to additiona...

Humans have a capacity to become aware of thoughts and behaviours known as metacognition. Metacognitive efficiency refers to the relationship between subjective reports and objective behaviour. Understanding how this efficiency changes as we age is important because poor metacognition can lead to negative consequences, such as believing one is a good driver despite a recent spate of accidents. ...

BACKGROUND Antidepressant drug therapy can precipitate mania in vulnerable individuals, but little is known about the effects of age on this phenomenon. OBJECTIVE To pharmacoepidemiologically evaluate the risk of conversion to mania by antidepressant class and patient age. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Using an administrative national database of more than 7 million privately insured indivi...