Hey guys,
So this week in class Dr. Hens mentioned that as we age the axons of our neurons can swell. I did a bit of research on this because I was very curious and never heard of such a thing. What I found is that axon swellings are referred to as spheroids. These spheroids can occur due to the buildup of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and glycogens. I found a few papers detailing mechanisms of how this happens by searching "neruoaxonal spheroids," but I don't want to post anything too difficult. Basically swelling occurs naturally as we age, but can also be linked to neurodegenertive diseases or simple head injuries (one little bump to us is one helluva whallop to a neuron). Along with my research I found this interesting article (1st Link Below) describing a case study in a male patient who was observed to have these axon spheroids (much more applicable and interesting than the papers I found of mice/dogs/rats with them). I don't want to give away anything so I'll let you read the article yourselves, its short but very interesting (at least I believe it is).
http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/75/7/1070.full.pdf+html (Case Study)
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v6/n11/fig_tab/nrn1788_F2.html (Image from here)
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