title: Age-related changes of elements with their relationships in human cranial and spinal nerves.
abstract: To elucidate compositional changes of peripheral nerves with aging, the authors investigated age-related changes of elements and their relationships in the optic, trigeminal, vagus, median, radial, ulnar, femoral, sciatic, tibial, and common peroneal nerves by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry. The subjects consisted of 10 men and 12 women, ranging in age from 65 to 91 yr. It was found that although accumulations of Ca and P occurred only in the trigeminal nerve at old age, it hardly occurred in the optic, vagus, median, radial, ulnar, femoral, sciatic, tibial, and common peroneal nerves at old age. The average contents of Ca and P were three and two times higher in the trigeminal nerve than in the other nine kinds of nerve, respectively. Likewise, the average content of Mg was a little higher in the trigeminal nerve compared with the other nerves. With regard to the relationships among elements, significant direct correlations were found among the contents of Ca, P, S, and Mg in most, but not all, 10 kinds of nerve. In the trigeminal nerve, a significant inverse correlation was found between the contents of S and the other elements, such as Ca, P, and Mg. Regarding the relationships between the contents of S and other elements, the nerves, except for the trigeminal nerve, differed from those found in the arteries previously reported.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cell Biology, Department of Anatomy, Nara Medical University, Kashihara, Nara 634-8521, Japan.
authors.forename: Masako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Utsumi
authors.forename: Setsuko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tohno
authors.forename: Yoshiyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tohno
authors.forename: Cho
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Azuma
authors.forename: Yumi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Moriwake
authors.forename: Fumio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nishiwaki
authors.forename: Masa-Oki
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Minami
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000378:metabolism*; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism; D003391:Cranial Nerves / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008274:Magnesium / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D010758:Phosphorus / Q000378:metabolism; D013054:Spectrophotometry, Atomic; D013127:Spinal Nerves / Q000378:metabolism*; D013455:Sulfur / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D010758:Phosphorus; D013455:Sulfur; D008274:Magnesium; D002118:Calcium