Sunday, March 15, 2015

Is Reversal of age possible?

Have you considered the ability Benjamin Buttons has to decrease in age as time goes on? Well although Benjamin’s ability will never be fully possible, new studies in mice have shown that researchers are finding new ways to increase the blood flow and production of neurons in aging mice.

A team of researchers from Harvard University, which included Lida Katsimoardi and Lee L. Rubin, conducted an experiment to test if young systematic factors could reverse the decline in the potential for neural stem cells in aging mice.

   The team used a heterochronic parabiotic model, which is when two animals are joined together to share the same circulation system. First, the team used a 15-month-old mouse and joined it to a 2-month-old mouse. The findings showed that the old blood did not negatively effect the production of the neurons in the younger mouse. To see how an older mouse might affect the two-month-old mouse, the team used a 21-month-old mouse and joined it to a 2-month-old mouse. Their findings showed that the old blood negatively effected the production of new neurons in the young mouse, and the young blood of the 2-month-old mouse increased the production of neurons in the older mouse. This research shows that youthful blood can restore the potential of stem cells to differentiate in aging mice, and that there comes a certain point where aging blood can negatively effect the production of neurons.
                           

 

The team also increased the amount of stem cells associated with aging mice’s smelling senses to see if the increased neural stem cells would lead to better abilities of smelling. The results were that aging mice were able to smell much better after the increase in neural stem cells to the olfactory bulb.

The researchers then created an angiogram, which is a three dimensional representation of blood vessels, to see if young blood factors can also reverse the decrease blood flow in aging mice. The heterchronic parabiosis model showed a tremendous increase in the blood vessel volume and the blood vessel branching in the aging mice. They also experimented with GDF11, a protein that inhibits the growth of nerve tissue, to see if it could also increase the generation of neurons in aging mice.

They injected GDF11 into 21-month-old mice and 23-month-old mice for four weeks to see the possible effects it could have on their blood vessels. The results showed that the volume of blood vessels in the GDF11 treated mice increased by 50%, and a specific neural stem cell called Sox2+ increased by 29%.

These new finds will lead to much more experiments in this field of rejuvenation of the vascular and neural systems of aging mice. This is just the beginning with these experiments. This can lead to new discoveries with certain diseases associated with old age in humans including Alzheimer’s. If these new discoveries can have the same effect in humans that it does in mice then new medicines and therapeutic treatments with aging-associated diseases can be manufactured. Hey, now Benjamin Buttons is not sounding that crazy anymore!

Reference List

1- Aging vs. Rejuvenation. Digital image. Https://lucyhagger.wordpress.com. N.p., n.d. Web
2- "Growth Differentiation Factor." Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/10220. N.p., n.d. Web.
3- Katsimpardi, Lida, and Lee L. Rubin. "Vascular and Neurogenic Rejuvenation of the Aging Mouse Brain by Young Systematic Factors." Http://www.sciencemag.org. N.p., 10 Apr. 2014. Web.



15 comments:

  1. If introducing young blood to old mice and old blood to young mice has a significant effect is it possible that blood transfusions could be having the same effect to a small degree? If so could blood transfusions be used to rejuvenate sick and elderly patients and help them to fight certain diseases or generally improve their health? Conversely, could blood transfusions from older donors be having a negative effect on young patients?

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  3. What makes blood "youthful" or "old". I always thought our body had a way of recycling proteins and blood cells every so often. So are there any indications of what in the blood is giving the older mouse the ability to activate the dormant neural stem cells? I would imagine molecularly there must be something. Maybe comparing the composition of "old" and "youthful" blood something they should look into!

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  4. You said that the blood from the 15-month-old mouse did not affect the 2-month-old mouse, but the blood from the 21-month-old did. What happened in the 6 months of development that made the old blood negatively affect the younger mouse?

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  5. You said that the blood from the 15-month-old mouse did not affect the 2-month-old mouse, but the blood from the 21-month-old did. What happened in the 6 months of development that made the old blood negatively affect the younger mouse?

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  6. I am surprised that there was increased neurogenesis in the 21 month old mouse when connected to the 2 month old mouse. As I understand, once neurons reach maturity they enter the G0 phase and should theoretically not be able to divide due to methylation. Methylation is a permanent process so how is it possible that neurons could be demethylated by the blood from the 2 month old mouse, in order to divide and create new neurons, neurogenesis.

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  7. The possibility that the source of blood transfusions might have an effect on the recipient alone makes this area worth looking into further. Hunter brought up a good point in raising the question if transfusions from older people to younger people may be negatively effecting health and development. If this is the case, it would have an immediate and sizable effect on health care today. I think that this is especially pertinent because the main group of young people receiving blood-work is probably those that have pre-existing health problems and likely get transfusions on a regular basis. It is obviously going to take much further research; but, we do not want to possibly lessen the chance of health improvement or negatively effect development in these young people through old to young transfusions.

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  8. I agree with Matthew's comment in that the danger of obtaining transfusions from older individuals can lead to many ethical issues. This is a generalization, but some individuals may be more willing to give blood transfusions as they get older, thus possibly putting the younger population in harm's way. This points mentioned in this article indicate the crucial need for advancements in stem cell research as well as blood transfusions.

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  9. I found this post interesting but have a hard time understanding why the 15 month old blood had no effect on the younger mouse but the 21 month old blood had a positive effect on the younger mouse. I would be interested in learning what specific parts of the blood have the positive effects and whether or not these could be isolated and reproduced in future trials. The future impact of this study on future drug development will be interesting.

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  10. This is certainly a fascinating concept that seems like it could have very real world applications. While it is a long way from being close to human trials, it would be amazing to see this concept used to help fight neurodegenerative diseases like dementia which slowly affects the body much like the aging process does. Additionally, helping older patients fight various illnesses through these transfusions seems like a possibility as well. However, there is an ethical implication that comes into play. At a certain point, when does it become wrong to "play god" in such a fashion, and interrupt the aging process. While saving a life is always important, at some point indirect consequences could be the result for society as a whole.

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  11. Very great post! It was interesting to read about how young blood introduced to old mice, and old blood introduced to young mice, has an effect. It made me wonder if this transfusion could be possible for humans and if it would have the same effect. I hope that they keep experimenting with this idea because it seems extremely beneficial to our understanding of our bodies!

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  12. It seems to me that these results are giving us a clear indication that further study is needed. What factors are actually causing these effects and why are they manifested through the bloodstream? Also, can we viably extend this to human patients?

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  13. Interesting (and frightening)! It sounds like all of the stories where the old witch will suck the youth out of children in order to live longer herself! It will be interesting to see if further research can identify and isolate specific factors within the blood/body which are responsible for the 'age-reversal', as sharing an entire system's worth of blood might be impractical on a large scale. Maybe it will boil down to a simple injection of these special factors?

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  14. I like that this seems like a promising treatment for Alzheimers in the future, but is it realistic. In these models, the circulatory systems of two mice are joined together and the blood of both is circulated throughout both mice. I assume if a human were to undergo this treatment, they would have some kind of blood transfusion with younger donor blood, but how realistic is it that there would be enough young donor blood to have an effect? And would the patient have to have multiple treatments or would one treatment make a difference? We're still a ways off from using this in humans but those are some interesting questions to consider.

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  15. This is so crazy! How can they join the two rats together! but wow that is all very interesting and exciting! It definitely would take a lot more research until it reached the idea being plausible for humans. Perhaps they could try in different animal species and see how that goes. How would this change the brain functioning of humans if we could generate more neurons after having so many die. Other than alzheimer's what else would it be good for I wonder..

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