64 – The Aged Sympathetic Nervous System

This chapter focuses on the correlation between aging and the nervous system. Various aspects related to the issue, such as basal sympathetic activity in human aging and sympathetic dysregulation in the older people are being discussed. The mechanism of cellular aging is different in the young and old people. A detailed discussion on the structural changes of the neurons, on the blood vessels and on other tissues forms an integral part of the discussion in the subject. A detailed analysis of the mechanism of changes along with diagrammatic representation is present in this chapter. Since trophic support is very important for maintenance of the plasticity of the mature sympathetic neurons, detailed discussion on the influence on molecule on the aging of plasticity of aging sympathetic neurons is also held in this chapter. The response of the neurons on the trophic factors and the role of the target associated factors in the extracellular matrix are preeminent parts of the analysis on the above subject.