# Is rejuvenation or significant life extension even on the radar yet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-rejuvenation-or-significant-life-extension-even-on-the-radar-yet/1023167 "2025-09-18T20:55:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 30
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-rejuvenation-or-significant-life-extension-even-on-the-radar-yet/1023167/30 "2025-09-21T15:27:24Z")
Even if we could some how manage to rejuvenate other organs or prevent physiological senescence of the body as a system, the brain appears to have a ‘genetic clock’ that controls gene expression which drives neural and cognitive function. From a previous thread on the topic: > [@In your opinion, how close (or far) are we from radical life extension?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/10): > > Even that may be optimistic. Neuroscientists have found evidence of a [“genetic clock”](https://www.edinburghneuroscience.ed.ac.uk/news/genetic-timetable-brain%E2%80%99s-ageing-process) that controls gene expression in the brain and central nervous system from infancy through elderhood. Even if we could arrest all of the aging processes in the rest of the body, degradation of memory and other neural functions will continue. There is considerable evidence that exercising the brain by learning new skills can slow or arrest age-related degradation, but ultimately people lose brain functions as they age even absent of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or cumulative brain trauma. Reversing that will literally require understanding and refactoring the gene expression processes in the brain which we are nowhere near about to do with any useful degree of fidelity. Stranger --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-rejuvenation-or-significant-life-extension-even-on-the-radar-yet/1023167)._