Cardiac Aging: From Basic Research to Therapeutics

Figure 2

The concept of cardiac aging and its biological mechanism. Cardiac aging is a pathophysiological process affected by many factors triggered under various intrinsic and external stimuli with age. Many factors can affect key cellular processes and pathways during cardiac aging, such as oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, impaired autophagy, telomere damage, ncRNAs, and dysregulation of mTOR signaling. These factors can also influence each other and lead to cardiomyocyte senescence, apoptosis, and other cell damages. Cardiac aging causes changes in heart structure and function, such as progressive myocardial remodeling, decreases in systolic and diastolic function. CM indicates cardiomyocytes.