>H Old brains restored in monkeys

[Andrew Hennessey <pegasus@easynet.co.uk>]

Transhuman Mailing List

>Delivered-To: pegasus
>From: "Dan S" <ds1999@crosswinds.net>
>To: "isml" <isml@onelist.com>
>Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 19:30:01 -0400
>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
>Mailing-List: list isml@onelist.com; contact isml-owner@onelist.com
>Delivered-To: mailing list isml@onelist.com
>List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:isml-unsubscribe@ONElist.com>
>Reply-to: isml@onelist.com
>Subject: [isml] Old brains restored in monkeys
>
>From: "Dan S" <ds1999@crosswinds.net>
>
>From http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=091499&ID=s635044&cat=
>-
>September 14, 1999
>
>Old brains restored in monkeys
>Gene therapy may be tested soon on Alzheimer's victims
>
>Paul Recer - Associated Press
>
>WASHINGTON _ Aged brains have been restored to youthful vigor in a gene
>therapy experiment with monkeys that may soon be tested in humans with
>Alzheimer's disease, researchers report. Scientists hope the treatment will
>reinvigorate thinking and memory.
>
>"To our surprise, this technique nearly completely reversed" the effects of
>aging on a group of key brain cells that had shrunk in elderly Rhesus
>monkeys, said Dr. Mark H. Tuszynski of the University of California, San
>Diego.
>
>Tuszynski is senior author of a study appearing today in the Proceedings of
>the National Academy of Sciences.
>
>The studies reinforce a new understanding of how the brain ages and suggest
>that neurons in the older brain don't die at first, but go into shrunken
>atrophy, he said.
>
>"We've all heard the dogma that we lose 10,000 neurons a day after the age
>of 20," said Tuszynski. "Well, that is false. That doesn't happen."
>
>An actual count of the cells in the cortex, a key area in the thinking part
>of the brain, shows that very few cells are lost with age, he said.
>
>Instead, he said, his team found that it was control neurons in another part
>of the brain, called the basal forebrain, that were most dramatically
>affected by aging. These cells, Tuszynski said, had shrunk in size and had
>stopped making some regulatory chemicals, a change that seriously affects
>the thinking cortex.
>
>"These cells are like the air traffic controllers of the brain," said the
>researcher. "They are on the ground, deeper in the brain, controlling the
>activities of cells up there in the cortex. They control the flow of
>information in the cortex."
>
>The researchers found that about 40 percent of the basal forebrain cells
>could not be detected in old monkeys, and the other 60 percent had shrunk in
>size by 10 percent.
>
>But the cells were not dead, Tuszynski said. By inserting genes for nerve
>growth factor, or NGF, into the brain, he said, the cells were revived and
>restored to nearly full vigor.
>
>"We restored the number of cells we could detect to about 92 percent of
>normal for a young monkey and size of the cells was restored to within 3
>percent," he said.
>
>It isn't known yet if the restored cells also reinvigorated the old monkeys'
>thinking and memory, but that is now being tested in another group of old
>monkeys, he said.
>
>But the therapy is so promising that the researchers applied in June to the
>Food and Drug Administration to test the gene therapy technique in humans
>with Alzheimer's disease.
>
>If the FDA gives its approval, NGF genes will be injected into the brains of
>Alzheimer's patients to see if they will restore some cognitive powers
>gradually destroyed by the disease, he said.
>
>Alzheimer's disease does not occur in animals exactly how it does in humans,
>said Tuszynski, so the only way to test the gene therapy technique is in
>human patients. The early trials, called Phase I, would involve only a small
>number to determine safety. It could be years before the technique's full
>value is proven, said Tuszynski.
>
>Dr. Bradley Wise of the National Institute of Aging said the study is
>important because it suggests that "the decline in the numbers and size of
>neurons with aging may be reversible."
>
>"A lot of studies have been done in rats in this area, but this is a step
>forward because it used primates (Rhesus monkeys)," said Wise. However, he
>cautioned that "a lot of work will have to be done," including determining
>how long the gene treatment lasts, before the technique could be used
>routinely in humans.
>
>In their experiment, the University of California, San Diego researchers
>used eight monkeys with an average age of 23, the monkey equivalent of the
>late 60s to 70s in humans.
>
>--
>Dan S
>
>
>
>--------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ----------------------------
>
>  New!!  Free E-mail @mail.com, @usa.com, @engineer.com and more!
>Mail.com makes it easy to set up a free, personalized e-mail address
>           that you can access anytime and anywhere.
>                http://www.onelist.com/ad/mailcom1
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>[ISML] Insane Science Mailing List
>LIST MODERATOR: DAN S.
>To subscribe: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/isml
>
>

***************************************************************************
* If you need to unsubscribe, send email saying "unsubscribe transhuman"  *
* to majordomo@logrus.org, without the quotes, from the SAME email address*
* as the one you subscribed under! Yes, it is case-sensitive. Don't blame *
* the admin for your spelling errors.                                     *
*                  Please email all technical problems to                 *
*               owner-transhuman@logrus.org, NOT to the list.             *
* Shameless plug: http://gerol.us.itd.umich.edu/                          *
***************************************************************************