A new study found that transporting marrow from younger to older mice lowers the signs of brain ageing - but experts warn that experimenting with this on humans to help fight is unethical. A team of scientists from the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing in suggested that younger hematopoietic stem cells, found in bone marrow, generate different types of blood cells. This in theory, then, could help to counter some of the signs of ageing when transplanted into older mice.
The researchers recalled earlier research that made connections between how strong a person's immune system is and the development of Alzheimer's. From this, they questioned whether or not these types of bone marrow transplants would help to counter the disease. Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease that causes the brain to shrink and brain cells to eventually die over time.
There is currently no cure for it but certain medications and therapies can slow down the progress of it. The results, published in , found that as well as having lower levels of neuronal degeneration, the mice also had fewer behavioural deficits and lower levels of amyloid-beta, the peptide that characterizes Alzheimer’s, in their brains. With Alzheimer’s being related to ageing, Rizwan Bashir, MD, a neurologist at Acia Orthopedics and not involved in the current research, told (MNT): "Alzheimer’s disease is predominantly a disease of ageing because it is strongly associated with the biological changes that occur as .
