Posts tagged blood
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Research group finds blood transfusions from young mice to old improves brain function
A research team from Stanford University has found that injecting the blood of young mice into older mice can cause new neural development and improved memory. Team lead Saul Villeda presented the groups’ findings at this year’s Society for Neuroscience conference.
The researchers were following up on work by another team also led by Villeda that last year found that when younger mice were given transfusions of blood from older mice, their mental faculties aged more quickly than non transfused young mice. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team also noted that the reverse appeared to be true as well, namely that the older mice derived a degree of mental benefit from the transfusions.
In this new research, the team connected the bloodstreams of an older mouse and a younger mouse, allowing their blood to comingle. Subsequent brain scans found that the number of neural stem cells in the brains of the older mice increased by 20 percent after just a few days, indicating that new neural connections were being made – a necessary occurrence for increased memory retention.
To find out if such differences could be measured in a behavioral sense, the team gave transfusions of blood plasma from young mice to older mice and then tested them in a standard water maze; one that requires strong memory skills. The team found that the transfused mice were able to perform as well as much younger mice, while a similar group of older mice that did not get transfusions were much less successful at solving the maze.
Villeda pointed out in his talk that his team’s findings don’t indicate that older people should try to obtain transfusions from younger people to stave off dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, as it’s not yet known if the same results might be had. What needs to happen, he said, is for researchers to look more closely at young mouse blood compared to the blood of older mice to discover what differences in it might account for the increased neural buildup it offers to older mice.
(Source: medicalxpress.com)
Researchers say they’ve identified an indicator, or “biomarker,” in the blood that may help predict a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
For their study, the investigators tested the blood of 99 women, aged 70 to 79, for levels of a fatty compound called ceramides, which is associated with inflammation and cell death. The women were then followed for up to nine years and 27 of them developed dementia, including 18 who were diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease.
Compared to women with the lowest levels of ceramides, those with the highest levels were 10 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s and those with middle levels of the biomarker were nearly eight times more likely to develop the memory-robbing disease, according to the findings published in the July 18 online issue of the journal Neurology.
"Our study identifies this biomarker as a potential new target for treating or preventing Alzheimer’s disease," Michelle Mielke, an epidemiologist with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology. She was with Johns Hopkins University at the time of the research.
Another expert stressed the importance of the study and the need for further research.
"These findings are important because identifying an accurate biomarker for early Alzheimer’s that requires little cost and inconvenience to a patient could help change our focus from treating the disease to preventing or delaying it," Valory Pavlik, of the Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Center of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
"While a larger, more diverse study is needed to confirm these findings, projections that the global prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease will double every 20 years for the foreseeable future have certainly increased the sense of urgency among researchers and health care agencies to identify more effective screening, prevention and treatment strategies," Pavlik noted.
Source: healthfinder.org