One thing many people have worried about once in their life or continuously worry about is aging. A majority of people fear aging and all the things that come with aging such as memory loss, deterioration of the cells, no control over bowel movements and so on. It freaks me out when I think about it and its relevant to all of us we are not getting any younger!
Neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray from Stanford University has found a protein that is located in young human blood plasma that is improving brain function in aging mice. By infusing young human blood into the veins of older mice they have found that the mice cognitive functions has improved. The mice would have to navigate its way through a maze and learn how to avoid some areas of their cage that would administer electrical shocks.
They found that when youthful blood was infused more connections would happen between neurons and the brain which affected the hippocampus which is a part of the brain the correlates with learning and memory. Researchers tested 66 different types of protein to see which one was the one altering cognitive performance. They only found one called TIMP2, scientists noticed that it would improve the performance of the mice but did not regenerate the brain cells that are lost through aging.
Wyss-Coray (neuroscientist) also started collecting plasma from umbilical cords of newborn babies to see if younger blood might act differently with the mice but the TIMP2 from umbilical cords had no effect on memory.
Researchers still don't know how TIMP2 works with learning & memory function. Scientists believe that the protein function is involved with growth of cells & blood vessels and that because of this function it is effecting many pathways to the brain and memory all at the same time. A neuroimmunologist, Michal Schwartz believes that TIMP2 is changing the immune system which affects the brain indirectly. Another researcher Lee Rubin, noticed one mouse contained high levels of a protein called GDF11 which was injected into a vessel that leads to the brain but it never reaches the brain, he believes that TIMP2 is acting the same way and indirectly affecting the brain. Scientist still need to pinpoint TIMP2 and how it impacts the brain.
What is exciting about this find is that researchers have opened a door that could lead to potential treatments for Alzheimers disease or other aging diseases. Its still pretty new so it will take a couple of years to get to this stage. After reading this article it reminded me of the scary story of Queen Elizabeth that she would soak in the blood of younger woman which would kept her young, beautiful and even gave her strange abilities. Its an old creepy tale but it seems like it possible that using young blood into older animals improves their health in someway. I am really interested in what they are going to find in the future and the positive impact it will have on peoples lives.
Reference:
Reardon, Sara. “Young Human Blood Makes Old Mice Smarter.” Nature News, 2017, http://www.nature.com/news/young-human-blood-makes-old-mice-smarter-1.21848. Accessed 19 April 2017.
It's cool to think that just a protein could be responsible for more neural connections and the ability to learn more quickly. I know that this information is new, so it's not certain whether or not the same protein getting re-introduced to an older human would work in a similar way, but I hope we can continue research in this subject. The capability of communication in the brain increasing could help with a number of disorders like dementia or alzheimer's, as well as potentially helping people with mental health disorders or those suffering with addiction. There are other issues present in all of these cases, but maybe the ability for the brain to learn and grow more quickly because of neuron activity could help treat symptoms at the very least. Studies that started in 2008 have shown that people who suffer with blindness can still retain some semblance of sight because multiple parts of the brain are linked with it (Ref. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-blindness-is-in-the-mind/). Maybe, with knowledge like this, we can figure out a way to grow neural pathways in new areas of the brain to counteract negative effects of damage. It's interesting to consider, at least! -GW
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