New studies published in Nature Medicine and Science shows that transfusing elderly mice with younger blood helped improve endurance, memory, muscle tone, and smell. Furthermore this practice could reverse the reduction of cognitive functions such as those contributing to Alzheimer’s disease and heart enlargement.
One of the studies was carried out in California by Saul Villeda and Tony Wyss-Coray along with their colleagues. Villeda and Wyss-Coray’s earlier work supported the hypothesis that young blood could stimulate the growth of brain stem cells and new neurons, while old blood has the reverse effect. The experiment entailed stitching the circulatory systems of old mice, 18 months old to younger mice, 3 months old. The elderly mice connected to the younger mice began sprouting a greater number of new nerve cell connections in comparison to those connect with another elder.
Another study by the pair used injections of blood plasma from younger mice eight times over the course of three weeks. Villeda and Wyss-Coray found that those mice could better navigate the maze to find a hidden platform compared to the control mice. One of the chambers in the maze gave a slight shock which they also showed signs of remembering better than the controls. They were also able to run longer on treadmills. Scientists believe the benefits could be a result of the proteins found in the blood plasma. A clue to this was that proteins are deactivated by heat and when the plasma was heated prior to injection the previous results were not seen. Tony Wyss-Coray hopes to begin a similar study on humans soon with a new company called Alkahest for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s. Judith Campisi, a biochemist at Buck Institute for Research on Aging says that “if we understand the aging process in enough detail, we can begin to tackle the underlying mechanisms rather than treating one disease at a time”. Hopefully this is a discovery that will help to combat Alzheimer’s as well as other related health problems in the future.
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