Reference
Glossary of aging science
Plain-language definitions of the terms you’ll meet across the record. These also appear as hover-definitions while you read.
- Autophagy
- The cell's recycling process that breaks down and reuses damaged components; declines with age.
- Caloric restriction
- Reducing calorie intake without malnutrition; one of the most reproducible lifespan-extending interventions in animals.
- Epigenetic clock
- A method that estimates biological age from DNA methylation patterns.
- Hallmarks of aging
- A canonical set of interconnected biological processes that drive aging (e.g. genomic instability, telomere attrition, cellular senescence).
- Healthspan
- The period of life spent in good health, free of chronic disease and disability — distinct from total lifespan.
- Inflammaging
- Chronic, low-grade inflammation that increases with age and contributes to many age-related diseases.
- Mitochondrial dysfunction
- Age-related decline in the cell's energy-producing organelles, a hallmark of aging.
- mTOR
- A central nutrient-sensing signaling pathway; its inhibition (e.g. by rapamycin) extends lifespan in many organisms.
- NAD+
- A coenzyme central to cellular energy metabolism whose levels decline with age.
- Partial reprogramming
- Briefly expressing reprogramming factors (e.g. OSK) to rejuvenate cells without erasing their identity.
- Proteostasis
- The maintenance of a healthy, correctly-folded set of proteins in a cell; loss of proteostasis is a hallmark of aging.
- Rapamycin
- An mTOR-inhibiting drug studied for extending healthspan and lifespan.
- Senescence
- A state in which a cell permanently stops dividing but does not die, often secreting inflammatory signals; accumulation of senescent cells is a hallmark of aging.
- Senolytics
- Drugs or compounds that selectively clear senescent ("zombie") cells from tissues.
- Telomere
- A protective cap of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome that shortens with each cell division.