New Study Explores Sodium Changes in Aging and Neurological Disease Models

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PASADENA, Calif. — September 2024 — A new study led by Dr. Xianghong Arakaki and Dr. Robert A. Kloner of Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI) provides new insight into how sodium regulation in the brain changes with aging and neurological injury.

Published in Scientific Reports, the paper — “Higher Sodium in Older Individuals or After Stroke/Reperfusion, but Not in Migraine or Alzheimer’s Disease — A Study in Different Preclinical Models” — examines how sodium concentrations vary across several experimental models, including aging, stroke, migraine, and Alzheimer’s disease.

The multi-institutional research team — Chenchen Xia, Wangde Dai, Juan Carreno, Andrea Rogando, Xiaomeng Wu, Darren Simmons, Natalie Astraea, Nathan F. Dalleska, Alfred N. Fonteh, Anju Vasudevan, Xianghong Arakaki, and Robert A. Kloner — found that:

  • Older rats exhibited significantly higher sodium levels in cerebrospinal fluid, plasma, and multiple brain regions compared with younger animals.

  • Stroke/reperfusion models showed elevated sodium in the ischemic region, coupled with reduced potassium and a higher sodium-to-potassium ratio.

  • Migraine and Alzheimer’s models did not show significant sodium changes in brain or cerebrospinal fluid samples.

“These findings highlight that sodium dysregulation is not a uniform feature across neurological disorders,” said Dr. Arakaki, Associate Professor of Neurosciences at HMRI. “Age and ischemic injury appear to play a much greater role than migraine or Alzheimer’s disease in altering sodium balance.”

The study advances understanding of how ion homeostasis shifts under different pathophysiological conditions, suggesting that aging and acute vascular injury may uniquely disrupt sodium regulation in the brain.

Full article: Scientific Reports, September 2024