A group of scientists at the University of Cambridge and the University of Leeds managed to successfully reverse memory loss in aging mice.
While this may seem like an insignificant blip on the scientific radar, this breakthrough is very importantly indicative of how the same methods may be used in treating age-related memory loss in humans.
Science Daily reports how the study — formally published in “Molecular Psychiatry” — was initially inspired by the recent discovery of how cartilage-like structures called perineuronal nets (PNN), which are pivotal in the brain’s “plasticity” or, essentially, its ability to learn and adapt.
See, when humans are younger, their brains are more malleable (i.e., they have more plasticity), something which slowly “turns off” as we get older. However, PNNs house a compound known as chondroitin sulphate whose functions is to turn neuroplasticity either “on” or “off.” This is what the researchers specifically decided to take a look at.
The group observed how manipulating the chondroitin sulphate within PNNs might inspire neuroplasticity after it was shut down by the chondroitin sulphate. What they found was that 20-month-old mice — which is very old in mice-age-wise — appeared to exhibited more memory retention when given a “viral vector” full of 6-sulphate chondroitin sulphates.
In other words, their memory had been restored.
“What is exciting about this is that although our study is only in mice, the same mechanism should operate in humans—the molecules and structures in the human rain are the same as those in rodents,” explains Profess James Fawcett of Cambridge’s John van Geest Centre for Brain Repair. “This suggests that it may be possible to prevent humans from developing memory loss in old age.”
