Patent ID: 7739056

Claim:
A method of screening a test agent for treatment of aging-dependent cognitive function decline comprising: (1) measuring the expression of a plurality of aging- and cognitive-related genes (ACGs) in a mammal to obtain a pre-test agent-ACG expression pattern; (2) administering the test agent to the mammal; (3) measuring the expression of the plurality of aging- and cognitive-related genes (ACGs) in the mammal to obtain a test agent-ACG expression pattern; (3) comparing the pre-test agent-ACG expression pattern to the drug ACG expression profile obtained for the mammal; and (4) correlating a modification of expression of one or more ACGs after administration of the test agent with a predictive effect on treatment of aging-dependent cognitive function decline, wherein, said plurality of ACGs are selected from the ACGs listed in Tables 1A and 1B and are selected based on synaptic functional plasticity.