Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray

(stories.tamu.edu)

160 points | by cybermango 3 hours ago

16 comments

  • gavinray 1 hour ago
    "Reverse brain aging", sure, in the same sense that taking Vitamin C reverses aging.

    The nasal spray reduced markers of inflammation in hippocampal microglial cells.

    A lot of things reduce inflammation. That is not "reversing ageing".

    Of course, "reduces inflammation" doesn't headline very well...

    • Aurornis 10 minutes ago
      This is the current big grift in anti-aging science:

      1 - Find a marker correlated with aging across a large sample

      2 - Find a medication or supplement that also alters that marker

      3 - Do some before and after measurements of the marker with the supplement or medication, and claim that you have reversed aging. Rely on the fact that enough readers won’t look closely enough to wonder if the marker is a true independent variable that represents aging.

    • fragmede 1 hour ago
      Tell that to Bryan Johnson.
      • jordanboxer 11 minutes ago
        Sure let’s listen to someone with extreme anxiety about the most utterly democratic humane experience
    • mawadev 1 hour ago
      The article is also heavily ai generated, I call bs on every single bit
      • bigmattystyles 1 hour ago
        I thought the url said temu at first.
        • RyanOD 12 minutes ago
          Hah! Me too.
      • rylando 1 hour ago
        Kinda surprised A&M’s letting them use AI to write these things
      • scrubs 1 hour ago
        AI generated? Not demonstrated.

        Whining by humans claiming AI? Predictable. Probable. Indeed LLM "complete the sentence" predictable.

      • dwa3592 1 hour ago
        >>The article is also heavily ai generated

        can you please share your methodology for detecting ai please?

        • TonyAlicea10 1 hour ago
          “The most surprising part? It all happened within weeks and lasted for months.”

          That’s an AI tell. It may not be entirely LLM-generated, the various direct quotations help a lot, but there are touches that definitely feel like an LLM had a hand here.

          • ShinyLeftPad 35 minutes ago
            That's not an "AI tell". If you read anything in recent decades, this is a turn of speech human writers wrote for ages and still write.
            • andregr 28 minutes ago
              "It's not just x, it's y." Absolutely clear tell, especially at this frequency. Examples from the article below:

              "Over decades, it doesn’t just wear down, it also starts to run hot." "... the therapy didn’t just clear brain fog, it physically improved the brain’s ability to process and store information."

              The quotes as well: "'... Not just living longer, but living smarter and healthier,' Shetty said." "'We aren’t just trying to understand the biological mechanisms, we are translating and developing our findings into real-world therapies that could make a difference,' Shetty said."

              • ShinyLeftPad 24 minutes ago
                What that is is a tell of bad writing
                • andregr 8 minutes ago
                  It's a tell of not writing. It is extremely well-documented as a tell of AI writing.
            • rfrey 17 minutes ago
              Anybody who still writes using their own mind has stopped using that pattern, along with others. "The thing nobody tells you:" is no longer used by decent writers.
            • damontal 23 minutes ago
              It’s a tell now. I see it I assume AI and disregard.
        • asdf88990 1 hour ago
          Vibes. It is in the vibes.
          • anonym29 1 hour ago
            Just a heads up, you're firmly in Poe's Law territory.
            • hyperhello 1 hour ago
              Poe’s Law is the very essence of AI.
        • nullsanity 1 hour ago
          [dead]
      • dwa3592 1 hour ago
        c'mon you guys, chill. this is not a vaccine.
  • SubiculumCode 2 hours ago
    High impact journal for an interesting study that is admittedly largely out of my area of expertise. The limitation of it being done in animal models, is of course, noted, but also expected. The question I would ask is how well the underlying background research makes this outcome expected.
    • jskeicjwkxjwkd 1 hour ago
      Damn, that’s one hell of a way to say “is this any good though?”. Too many words for such a simple question.
      • SubiculumCode 1 hour ago
        Pretty much, lol. I started to say some other things but decided to say less.
      • Brian_K_White 36 minutes ago
        But "how well the underlying background research makes this outcome expected" does not mean "is this any good though".

        It's also an actually interesting question.

        It's one thing to find some things hard to follow, it's another to be proud of it.

  • earth-tattoo 2 hours ago
    That's exactly what I want: immortal mice!
    • dlcarrier 1 hour ago
      You joke, but rodents make great pets, because they are very social and have a range of personalities, but most only live a few years. I knew someone with a pet retired lab rat, and it lived much longer than the average fancy rat, but even then, it didn't even live half as long as the average cat or dog.

      If we could breed or treat rodents to live longer, we could keep low-resource pets without as much loss.

    • ghurtado 1 hour ago
      That's a surprisingly underused plot for a sci Fi horror film.

      Considering the grand total of experiments we've ran on the little guys, I'm kinda surprised we haven't bred Mousezilla yet

      • bookofjoe 59 minutes ago
        See also: “Flowers for Algernon”
      • bitwize 1 hour ago
        Or Pinky & the Brain
  • block_dagger 2 hours ago
    Flowers for Algernon’s Brain
    • wingmanjd 1 hour ago
      This short story was scarier to me as a kid than anything else I read at the time.
      • bookofjoe 56 minutes ago
        The movie adaptation — “Charlie” — is heartbreakingly good.
  • hoppp 1 hour ago
    I take N-acetylcysteine and it helps with brain fog also! Plus it reduces stress and irritability.
    • aurareturn 19 minutes ago
      What is your dosage?
    • ai_fry_ur_brain 1 hour ago
      And OCD symptoms, and many also benefit from better impulse control. Its more effective than SSRIs for some.

      NAC is one of the only known treatments for trichotillomania, a under discussed but common condition that causes people to uncontrollably pull their hair out.

      NAC has also been studied to reduce nicotine and alchohol cravings as well.

      • tmoertel 1 minute ago
        Are there any risks associated with NAC supplementation? For example, could long-term usage reduce aptosis and thereby increase risks of developing cancer?
  • ChrisArchitect 14 minutes ago
    Story from April;

    Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48288478

  • catlifeonmars 1 hour ago
    TFA reeks of over-sensationalizing. Here is a summary sans hyperbole:

    Intranasal Human NSC-Derived EVs Therapy Can Restrain Inflammatory Microglial Transcriptome, and NLRP3 and cGAS-STING Signalling, in Aged Hippocampus[1].

    Abstract:

    > Neuroinflammaging, a moderate, chronic, and sterile inflammation in the hippocampus, contributes to age-related cognitive decline. Neuroinflammaging comprises the activation of the nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat family, and pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes, and the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway that triggers type 1 interferon (IFN-1) signalling. Studies have shown that extracellular vesicles from human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural stem cells (hiPSC-NSC-EVs) contain therapeutic miRNAs that can alleviate neuroinflammation. Therefore, this study examined the effects of late middle-aged (18-month-old) male and female C57BL6/J mice receiving two intranasal doses of hiPSC-NSC-EVs on neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus at 20.5 months of age. Compared with animals receiving vehicle treatment, the hippocampus of animals receiving hiPSC-NSC-EVs exhibited reductions in astrocyte hypertrophy, microglial clusters, and oxidative stress, along with elevated expression of antioxidant proteins and genes that maintain mitochondrial respiratory chain integrity. Moreover, hiPSC-NSC-EVs therapy decreased the levels of various proteins involved in the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, p38/mitogen-activated protein kinase, cGAS-STING-IFN-1, and Janus kinase and signal transducer and activator of transcription signalling pathways. Furthermore, in vitro assays using genetically engineered RAW cells and hiPSC-NSC-EVs, with or without targeted depletion of specific miRNAs, demonstrated that miRNA-30e-3p and miRNA-181a-5p, both present in hiPSC-NSC-EVs, can significantly inhibit the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and the STING pathway, respectively. Additionally, single-cell RNA sequencing conducted 7 days post-treatment revealed that hiPSC-NSC-EVs induce widespread transcriptomic changes in microglia, including increased expression of numerous genes that enhance oxidative phosphorylation and reduced expression of abundant genes that drive multiple proinflammatory signalling pathways. These changes mediated by hiPSC-NSC-EVs were also associated with improved cognitive and memory function. Thus, intranasal hiPSC-NSC-EVs therapy in late middle age can effectively diminish proinflammatory microglial transcriptome and signalling cascades that drive neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus, contributing to better brain function in old age.

    [1]: https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev...

  • timmg 1 hour ago
    How soon until biohackers try this on themselves?
  • general_reveal 1 hour ago
    When can I snort this?
    • grg0 44 minutes ago
      I knew cocaine had to have an upside.
    • hoppp 1 hour ago
      Prepare a line for me also please
  • Joel_Mckay 1 hour ago
    Many Brain-aging study sample pools are from young folks that died in accidents, aged homeless alcoholics, and individuals that were in declining health.

    Most cultures find it taboo to donate their beloved family members bodies for scientific dissection. Thus, people get ingrained "[bigotry] with extra steps" similar to phrenology proponents.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

    "Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance" =3

  • amingilani 2 hours ago
    ...in mice.

    > Therefore, this study examined the effects of late middle-aged (18-month-old) male and female C57BL6/J mice receiving two intranasal doses of hiPSC-NSC-EVs on neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus at 20.5 months of age.

    https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev...

    • switchbak 2 hours ago
      That PR piece was brutal to navigate. Undoubtedly punched up by AI, it took far too long to even understand what the treatment entailed.
    • doginasuit 2 hours ago
      To be fair though, I think we owe the mice a positive research outcome.
      • antonvs 2 hours ago
        “Congratulations, you get improved brain function while we continue to run other experiments on you!”
        • ghurtado 1 hour ago
          You can now experience both physical pain and existential dread!
          • tryagainian 1 hour ago
            On the plus side, expect to see great works of literature authored by rodents.
        • earthnail 2 hours ago
          “There will be cake!”
    • SubiculumCode 2 hours ago
      The link to the actual paper was appreciated. The context of whether findings will generalize outside of mouse models can depend a lot on specifics of the problem.
  • keepamovin 1 hour ago
    Ugh, I thought we were done with the Boomers....looks like they're gonna hang on.
  • fuckinpuppers 2 hours ago
    Mice get all the cool shit first
  • huflungdung 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • flintapi 2 hours ago
    [flagged]