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Unlike most of the cells in our body, our neurons are as old as we are: while other cell types are replaced as they wear out, our neurons must last our entire lifetime. The symptoms of disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and ALS result from neurons in the brain or spinal cord degenerating or dying. But why do neurons sometimes die?

One reason may be that elderly neurons struggle to remove waste products. Cells get rid of worn out or damaged components through a process called autophagy. A membranous structure known as the autophagosome engulfs waste materials, before it fuses with another structure, the lysosome, which contains enzymes that break down and recycle the waste. If any part of this process fails, waste products instead build up inside cells. This prevents the cells from working properly and eventually kills them.

Aging is the major shared risk factor for many diseases in which brain cells slowly die. Could this be because autophagy becomes less effective with age? Stavoe et al. isolated neurons from young adult, aging and aged mice, and used live cell microscopy to follow autophagy in real time. The results determined that autophagy does indeed work less efficiently in elderly neurons. The reason is that the formation of the autophagosome stalls halfway through. However, increasing the amount of one specific protein, WIPI2B, rescues this defect and enables the cells to produce normal autophagosomes again.

As long-lived cells, neurons depend on autophagy to stay healthy. Without this trash disposal system, neurons accumulate clumps of damaged proteins and eventually start to break down. The results of Stavoe et al. identify one way of overcoming this aging-related problem. As well as providing insights into neuronal biology, the results suggest a new therapeutic approach to be developed and tested in the future.