Human Ageing: A Unique Experience explores the biology of human ageing focusing on the individual. The book begins with the premature ageing disorder Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome and spins a web of interconnected biological domains involving lamins, telomeres, alternative splicing, genetics, epigenetics, and molecular clocks. The profound influence of culture is explored since cultural inheritance and genetic inheritance are the two intertwined processes driving human evolution. An empirical framework is developed to describe human ageing at the individual level and the implications of this framework on the whole concept of diseases are discussed.
Contents:The Biology of Ageing:Lamins: Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria SyndromemTOR PathwayMolecular ClocksSummary and PerspectivesAgeing and Environmental Cues (Experiences):Regulation of Gene Expression: EpigeneticsEnvironmental Cues: Specific ExamplesDomestication:The Domestication Process: The Russian Silver Fox ExperimentThe DogSummarySocial Context and Culture:OverviewAre Humans Still Evolving?Contemporary EvolutionSociety, Culture, and AgeingPerspectivesPulling the Threads Together:Theme: The Biology of Ageing at the Species and Indivdual LevelsTheme: Genetic Uniqueness of Each Individual Underlies that Individual's Unique Ageing PatternTheme: Ageing and an Individual's Social and Cultural EnvironmentFramework for the Ageing ProcessThe Disease Construct and Ageing:History of Disease ConstructPersonalized MedicineDisease or Ageing?Disease or Ageing: Is It Simply Semantics?
Readership: Gerontologists and geriatric physicians; researchers in comparative biology and physiology, genomics and epigenomics, developmental biology. Others include researchers in sociology and history of medicine.