动物实验 z-bio 2021-04-28 577

　　The legend of the Fountain of Youth has come true now, and it is really shocking to drop his jaw.

　　This sounds like a creepy folktale, but scientists have confirmed that the blood of young people can rejuvenate an elderly body, even if the body is not human.

　　In a new study, researchers injected healthy blood from a group of 18-year-old test-takers into 12-month-old mice. This age is considered middle-aged among laboratory rats, roughly equivalent to the 50-something years of humans.

　　For the next three weeks, these mice received two human plasma injections a week, which scientists believe will help the experimental mice regain their vitality.

　　After, scientists from Alkahest, a California-based biopharmaceutical company, compared the behavior of the mice that received the injection with the mice that did not receive the injection. The experimental mice in these control groups ranged in age from 3 months to 12 months, covering the young to old age of mice.

　　These blood can rejuvenate the old experimental rats, and they can run in the open field like the young control rats.

　　But there is no evidence that blood injection can improve their memory.

　　Researchers turned the treatment device for laboratory mice into a Barnes maze-a tool used to measure the spatial learning and memory of rodents.

　　Because the old laboratory mice have poor memory, they usually do not perform well in the Barnes maze. But the old experimental mice after the experiment can behave like young mice.

　　Alkahest researcher Sakura Minami said that we have seen this rejuvenation effect with our own eyes. The blood of young people improved the cognitive ability of experimental mice, and their memories were also preserved.

　　According to neurologist and founder of Alkahest Karoly Nikolich, the rejuvenation effect of young blood is reduced in new and old plasma with different protein structures.

　　Plasma contains thousands of proteins, but young plasma contains proteins that can restore tissues. As we age, they will disappear or be replaced by destructive molecules.

　　In an interview with CBS, Nikolich said that it is actually the first time that we have discovered that there are hundreds of proteins that can affect aging. We have seen an increase in aging plasma that can cause inflammation. This leads to cell death.

　　As for the working principle of these proteins, the researchers have not disclosed the details so far. But Minami said that they not only affect the tissues in the body, but some of them affect the brain.

　　The research team observed brain tissue slices of the mice that received the injection experiment and the control group. They found that the mice that received the blood injection had more new neurons in the brain.

　　The formation of

　　 neurons is called neurogenesis, which is an important part of our learning and memory abilities. The brain conditions of these experimental mice show that the plasma of young people can increase neurogenesis.

　　Minami said that this is very dramatic, and we have nearly doubled the results after conducting the experiment.

　　The research was presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in San Diego, USA, but it is worth noting that this research has not been published or reviewed by peer scientists.

　　So we need to remember that when we consider the potential of this research, especially its impact, so far we can only think about it in experimental mice.

　　But this is not the first time people have discovered that young blood can rejuvenate laboratory mice. Some studies as early as 2014 found that infusion of blood from young laboratory mice into old laboratory mice can increase the cognitive ability and strength of old laboratory mice. Although Alkahest's research may have discovered for the first time that human blood can benefit two species.

　　Alkahest researchers now want to know if this situation also applies to humans. They conducted clinical trials at Stanford University in the United States and recruited 18 patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer's disease.

　　If this clinical trial is successful, they plan to recruit more experimenters and use larger doses of plasma to see if the stimulation of neurogenesis by young blood can combat neurodegeneration such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Cognitive decline caused by disease.

　　There is not just one pharmaceutical company doing this research. Another American company, Ambrosia, is recruiting volunteers for clinical trials. They need people 35 years and older to receive a one-time injection of young plasma.

　　It is not yet known what this anti-aging treatment will bring, but some critics point out that these companies charge $8,000 per test taker.

　　Any related research in this field will attract a lot of attention, especially technology entrepreneur and PayPal founder Peter Thiel. He is personally interested in blood anti-aging research and has invested heavily in health research.

　　Finally, Alkahest said that it will produce a synthetic version of the required protein. After all, there is not enough natural young plasma in the world to help those suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

　　But the road is still very long. Now everyone is watching this first clinical trial. For the first time, we will truly understand whether the rejuvenation effect that works on experimental mice is also effective for humans.