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Aging

The brain drain puts aging myelin in deep trouble

In this issue, Stamenkovic et al. describe deep in vivo imaging of the brain vasculature to document its evolution during aging, which identifies a unique vulnerability at the site of convergence of capillaries toward major veins. They propose that pericyte and capillary instability there cause mild hypoperfusion, ultimately leading to myelin degradation.

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Fig. 1: Convergent bifurcation as an Achilles’ heel of cortical cerebral blood flow.

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Correspondence to Nicolas Renier.

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Assali, A., Renier, N. The brain drain puts aging myelin in deep trouble. Nat Neurosci 28, 1814–1815 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-02028-8

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