Saturday, May 17, 2014

Young Blood Reverses age-Related Impairments in Cognitive Function and Synaptic Plasticity in Mice

Dean Reinke
Deans' Stroke Musing
Monday, May 5, 2014

This was written up a year ago here: Factor That Reverses Aging of Heart Discovered - young blood. Why haven't we seen any human trials? I'm sure we could get grandchildren to donate blood. And if it works this would be so damned simple to implement. All the more reason to cultivate young friends. Well this is in mice but would you attempt this anyway?  NATURE MEDICINE - Young blood reverses age-related impairments in cognitive function and synaptic plasticity in mice.

As human lifespan increases, a greater fraction of the population is suffering from age-related cognitive impairments, making it important to elucidate a means to combat the effects of aging1, 2. Here we report that exposure of an aged animal to young blood can counteract and reverse pre-existing effects of brain aging at the molecular, structural, functional and cognitive level. Genome-wide microarray analysis of heterochronic parabionts—in which circulatory systems of young and aged animals are connected—identified synaptic plasticity–related transcriptional changes in the hippocampus of aged mice. Dendritic spine density of mature neurons increased and synaptic plasticity improved in the hippocampus of aged heterochronic parabionts. At the cognitive level, systemic administration of young blood plasma into aged mice improved age-related cognitive impairments in both contextual fear conditioning and spatial learning and memory. Structural and cognitive enhancements elicited by exposure to young blood are mediated, in part, by activation of the cyclic AMP response element binding protein (Creb) in the aged hippocampus. Our data indicate that exposure of aged mice to young blood late in life is capable of rejuvenating synaptic plasticity and improving cognitive function.



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