Source: TED
For millenia, man has searched for ways to extend physical existence and defeat death. In this Ted Talk, Tony Wyss-Coray, a researcher from Stanford shares an amazing new discovery that could be a scientific gateway into the “fountain of youth.”
Previous research has show that old mice who received blood from young mice could rejuvenate in key organs and tissues. And newer studies are showing that this also applies to the brain.
So an old mouse that gets blood from a young mouse, actually functions better (as if younger) in it’s brain. Age erodes our cognitive functions, especially when diseases like Alzheimer’s develop.
The big problem with studying our brains and aging is that we don’t get to really study the living brain. Most research is done on the brain after someone dies and they can take the brain apart.
Fortunately, blood gives us a window into how our brains age because we can look at it directly at any time (because we can take it out or put it in) and we can see health markers in the blood. Young blood, for instance, looks significantly different than old blood.
Looking at blood samples and studying certain factors (like hormones) can show a person’s biological age versus their (actual) chronological age.
Through the process of parabiosis with mice – where an old mouse (equivalent to about 65 years of human age) is surgically connected to a younger mouse (equivalent to about 20 years of age) and shares a circulatory system – studies now show that the old mouse brain can rejuvenate and have increased synaptic activity, more positive gene expression and less inflammation.
Unfortunately, the young mouse’s brain ages in these studies.
In the latest studies (unpublished as of this talk), Stanford scientists took young human plasma and injected it into older mice and gave them a maze test where they had to remember how to get to a certain hole in a maze to escape uncomfortably bright light.
One mouse was injected with simple saline and had no improvement in the maze tests over time, while another mouse of equal age (the first mouse’s sibling) was injected with young human blood and showed significant signs of improved memory in the speed and fashion that he found the correct hole in the maze.
Can all this be applied to humans?
Currently, Wyss-Coray’s group of scientists at Stanford are trying to find out. They’re inviting Alzheimer’s patients to receive young blood on a weekly basis, and they’re studying what this does to the disease by looking at both medical markers and also getting verbal feedback from caregivers.
According to Wyss-Coray, we aren’t going to live forever, but we can tap into factors inside ourselves to age less rapidly, and to even rejuvenate and feel younger at any age.