I wrote previously about how babies are born young. The essence is that for youth you need efficient mitochondria with a high membrane potential (when running in a steady state generating ATP). When an egg is created it is created with a mitochondrial bottleneck. This reduces the variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to about 3 copies (according to recent research). However, this does not as far as research indicates select for better mtDNA (and hence more efficient mitochondria). Relatively few babies are born with mitochondrial disease because the eggs don't get fertilised, don't start replicating, don't implant into the uterine wall or miscarry. This is not the only reason for non-viability, but it is a reason. This is seen in how older eggs tend to be less viable. However, there is another selection process for eggs which is called "Follicular Atresia". Follicular Atresia is a really interesting process and the Wikipedia article that I link to does ...
In Parkinson’s disease, dopaminergic neurons (primarily those in the substantia nigra pars compacta) undergo progressive dysfunction and death. In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS aka MND in the UK), both upper and lower motor neurons progressively degenerate. The cells deteriorate in different ways. However, the nub of both of theses diseases is the deterioration of a particular type of neuron. An interesting question is what it is about these neurons that makes them vulnerable to rapid deterioration. Neurons are high energy cells. Dopaminergic neurons have to maintain a massive network of axons linking them to other cells. Similarly motor neurons need to maintain long axons of possibly 1 metre in length. All of this takes energy. However, what distinguishes these two types of cells is that they rely to a greater extent on Oxidative Phosphorylation (that is using the Krebs cycle to produce energy) than other neurons. OxPhos, has the effect of generating more free radical...