EDIT: Time
Recently, the Stanford University research team posted in Nature that injecting young mouse brain and spine fluid into elderly mice can improve memory, which will reverse memory decline due to age, but infusion technology is high-risk.
For decades, scientists have tried to unravel the mysteries of memory decline, which is associated with age.
Now, researchers have discovered a possible treatment that takes cerebrospinal fluid from younger people and injects it into older people.
The experiment was conducted in mice, extracting cerebrospinal fluid from the brains of young mice and injecting it into the mice, which improved the memory function of the mice.
Just a few days ago, on May 11, the study was published in Nature.
Address of the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04722-0
cerebrospinal fluid
Injecting the brain with a young cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) may improve the neuronal conduction capacity of young mice, thereby improving memory.
Cerebrospinal fluid is closely related to brain cells, which carry signals that guide the proliferation and specificity of neuronal progenitor cells during development.
It can be understood that brain aging is because the brain is hindered by a barrier.
This, then, requires unclogging the conduction function of neurons, where a specific protein in the cerebrospinal fluid is key.
The composition of cerebrospinal fluid proteins varies with age, manifested by an increase in inflammatory proteins and a decrease in growth factors.
Just in March, the journal Nature Aging published an "anti-aging therapy" that reprograms skin cells by injecting "Yamanaka factor" into the skin of mice and using cell regeneration therapy.
According to the study, after only a few months, receiving "anti-aging therapy" looks much younger, the appearance of aging disappears, and there is no infection with any disease.
However, the current "rejuvenation" technique is not through the skin, but through the brain mechanisms to change.
Infusion techniques
The research team spent more than a year collecting cerebrospinal fluid and injecting it into another brain.
Why is the infusion technique so tricky and slow?
In fact, the pressure of the brain is a very delicate balance, and any blood contamination can destroy the fluid.
Therefore, the infusion technology must be precise, and the collection work is extremely challenging.
It is understood that cerebrospinal fluid is a colorless transparent liquid, which is an ultrafiltration liquid of plasma used to buffer the brain and spinal cord, which is essential for the normal development of the brain.
Doctors often use it as an indicator of brain health, as well as a biomarker of the nervous system.
In the first step of the experiment, the research team gave the old mice an experience that they could remember.
By performing 3 electric shocks on the feet of mice, accompanied by flashes and sounds, the connection between the light signal and the electric shock is established.
In the second step of the experiment, the researchers injected young cerebrospinal fluid into the above elderly mice, that is, for 20-month-old elderly mice, injected more than 2 months old young rats with cerebrospinal fluid.
The experimental control group was a group of mice injected with artificial cerebrospinal fluid. Combining the experimental group and control group data, the observation period was 3 weeks.
The findings found that nearly 40 percent of mice that received young cerebrospinal fluid remembered electric shocks and reproduced fearful situations, compared with only 18 percent of mice that received artificial cerebrospinal fluid.
It is clear that the memory function of injected artificial CSF mice is weaker than that of injected young rats with CSF. Experiments have shown that injecting young cerebrospinal fluid can improve the memory of elderly mice.
Research team
The first author of the paper is Tal Iram, who is currently engaged in neurological research at Stanford University.
Other collaborators of the paper include Nannan Lu from China.
After receiving her B.S. and Ph.D. from Zhejiang University, she is currently engaged in postdoctoral research in neurology and neuroscience at Stanford University.
There is also a co-investigator Luo Jian, who also has research experience in China and is currently a lecturer at Stanford University.
Over the past few years, he has been engaged in aging research, focusing on the role and regulation of neuroinflammation and immune responses in central nervous system aging and disease.
Resources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01282-1