For more than two decades, the Center for Lifespan Psychology has promoted a perspective on behavioral development that seeks to integrate age periods, domains of functioning, timescales, and levels of analysis. In part through these efforts, lifespan psychology has evolved into a distinct conceptual approach within developmental psychology (e.g., Baltes, 1987; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinge...

Many environmental factors that dynamically change in nature influence various aspects of animal physiology. Animals are equipped with sensory neuronal systems that help them properly sense and respond to environmental factors. Several studies have shown that chemosensory and thermosensory neurons affect the lifespan of invertebrate model animals, including Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila...

In many species, reducing nutrient intake without causing malnutrition extends lifespan. Like DR (dietary restriction), modulation of genes in the insulin-signaling pathway, known to alter nutrient sensing, has been shown to extend lifespan in various species. In Drosophila, the target of rapamycin (TOR) and the insulin pathways have emerged as major regulators of growth and size. Hence we exam...

Established animal models have accelerated our understanding of the mechanisms involved in lifespan determination. However, more experimental animals are required to clarify the complex mechanisms behind the phenomena of aging and lifespan. In this study, we reported the variation of lifespan in nine distinct silkworm strains. Lifespan correlated significantly with BmFoxO gene expression in the...

Lifespan of C. elegans is affected by the nervous system; however, the underlying neural integration still remains unclear. In this work, we targeted an antagonistic neural system consisting of low-oxygen sensing BAG neurons and high-oxygen sensing URX neurons. While ablation of BAG neurons increases lifespan of C. elegans, ablation of URX neurons decreases lifespan. Genetic analysis revealed t...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Is there a trade-off between children ever born (CEB) and post-reproductive lifespan in humans? Here, we report a comprehensive analysis of reproductive trade-offs in the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) dataset using phenotypic and genotypic correlations and a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to look for single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are related to the a...

It is a well-appreciated fact that in many organisms the process of ageing reacts highly plastically, so that lifespan increases or decreases when the environment changes. The perhaps best-known example of such lifespan plasticity is dietary restriction (DR), a phenomenon whereby reduced food intake without malnutrition extends lifespan (typically at the expense of reduced fecundity) and which ...

Differences in CD8(+)CD57(-) and CD8(+)CD57(+) lymphocyte lifespan have been documented. Lower numbers and shorter lifespan are characteristic of CD8(+)CD57(+) in normal individuals. However, CD8(+)CD57(+) are expanded in certain disease states including T cell large granular leukemia and other hematologic malignancies. The mechanisms responsible for the differences in CD8(+)CD57(-) and CD8(+)C...

Calorie restriction (CR) robustly extends the lifespan of numerous species. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, CR has been proposed to extend lifespan by boosting the activity of sirtuin deacetylases, thereby suppressing the formation of toxic repetitive ribosomal DNA (rDNA) circles. An alternative theory is that CR works by suppressing the TOR (target of rapamycin) signaling pathway, which...

The mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) has been associated with long lifespan across metazoans. In Caenorhabditis elegans, mild developmental mitochondrial stress activates UPRmt reporters and extends lifespan. We show that similar developmental stress is necessary and sufficient to extend Drosophila lifespan, and identify Phosphoglycerate Mutase 5 (PGAM5) as a mediator of this res...