Youthful antics predict lifespan — at least for these fish

Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X You snooze, you lose: young killifish ( Nothobranchius furzeri ) that take daytime naps have relatively short lives. Credit: Andrew Brodhead/Stanford Univ. Sleep patterns and activity levels can predict whether lifespan is long or short, according to a study 1 that tracked fish from adolescence to death. The study found that young fish that spent more of their waking hours being active tended to live longer than did more-sluggish fish. Young fish that restricted their sleep schedule to evening hours also reached a riper age than did those that slept more during the day. The findings suggest that even early-adulthood behaviour can predict future lifespan, says Agustín Ibáñez, a neuroscientist at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Santiago, Chile, who was not involved in the study. The study also hints that it might be possible to estimate how ageing will unfold long before signs of disease emerge, he adds. “This opens several exciting possibilities.” The findings were published today in Science . Behaviour as a window In humans and other animals, ageing is a complex process that is shaped by both genetics and environmental factors . Behaviour can be a handy way to understand ageing because it offers a window into an animal’s internal state, says study co-author Karl Deisseroth, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in California. “It’s a very powerful way to gain insight into the brain,” he says. But the relationship between behaviour, ageing and lifespan remains poorly understood, because tracking every single movement over an animal’s lifespan is a huge challenge. Coffee linked to slower brain ageing in study of 130,000 people