How a protein released by exercising muscle may hold the key to protecting the aging brain — without touching a single amyloid plaque

For nearly a century, the medical community has viewed the human body as a collection of specialized, somewhat isolated departments. The heart is for circulation; the muscles are for movement; the brain is for thought.

A large-scale single-cell atlas suggests that aging is coordinated across tissues and begins earlier than previously assumed

Traditional models describe aging as a tissue-specific process driven by local damage accumulation. In such models, organs decline largely independently, with limited coordination across systems. Data from Cao and colleagues support a different framework.