The Gut as the Conductor of an Aging Brain
In the orchestra of an aging brain, the instruments go out of tune one after another. The vessels that deliver oxygen thin out. The insulation around nerve fibers, like the sheathing on old wires, loses its density. The workshop for making new neurons, tucked away in the hippocampus, slows its assembly line. The conductor of this orchestra, it turns out, sits not in the head but in the belly.