Study finds Strong Link Between State of Mind and Brain Health

Having more positive experiences in life is associated with lower odds of developing brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease, slower cognitive decline with age, and even a longer life.

A study from Columbia researchers, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggested that the brain’s mitochondria may play a fundamental part.

Mitochondria supply energy to the brain, and the study showed that the molecular machinery used by mitochondria to transform energy is boosted in older adults who experienced less psychological stress during their lives compared with individuals who had more negative experiences.

In the study, researchers used data from two extensive studies involving nearly 450 older adults. Over two decades, these studies gathered detailed psychosocial information from the participants. After the participants passed away, their brains were donated for further analysis, providing data on the condition of their brain cells.

Researchers developed indices to convert participants’ reports of positive and negative psychosocial factors into a single overall psychosocial experience score. Additionally, each participant was scored on seven domains representing distinct genetic networks active in mitochondria.

The results showed that one mitochondrial domain, which assessed the organelle’s energy transformation machinery, was linked to psychosocial scores. Researchers further analyzed mitochondria in specific brain cell types and discovered that the associations between mitochondria and psychosocial factors were driven not by neurons, but by glial cells.

The finding suggests that glial cells may play more significant roles than their traditionally assumed "supportive" functions.

“Greater well-being was linked to greater abundance of proteins in mitochondria needed to transform energy, whereas negative mood was linked to lower protein content. This may be why chronic psychological stress and negative experiences are bad for the brain, because they damage or impair mitochondrial energy transformation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for high-level cognitive tasks. We think that the mitochondria in the brain are like antennae, picking up molecular and hormonal signals and transmitting information to the cell nucleus, changing the life course of each cell. If mitochondria can change cell behaviour, they can change the biology of the brain, the mind, and the whole person,” said the authors.

Reference: Èlia Vila, Raquel Pinacho, Roger Prades, Teresa Tarragó, Elena Castro, Eva Munarriz-Cuezva, J. Javier Meana, Ania Eugui-Anta, Mònica Roldan, América Vera-Montecinos, Belén Ramos, Inhibition of Prolyl Oligopeptidase Restores Prohibitin 2 Levels in Psychosis Models: Relationship to Cognitive Deficits in Schizophrenia, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 24, 7, (6016), (2023)/ https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24076016