The same drugs that reduce brain inflammation also reverse dementia in a mouse model
The cognitive decline associated with aging could be slowed or reversed by drugs that reduce inflammation in the brain.
Scientists from the University of California Berkeley and Ben-Gurion University report that mice who were senile after receiving a drug of this type showed fewer signs of inflammation in their brains and could learn new tasks more easily, almost as well as mice half their own age.
We tend to think of the aged brain the same way as we think of neurodegeneration. Age is associated with loss in function and the death cells. Our new data reveal a different explanation for why the aged brain does not function well. It’s because of the \”fog\” of inflammatory loads,\” said Daniela Kaufer of UC Berkeley, a professor of integrative biology and a senior researcher, together with Alon Friedman of Ben-Gurion University of the negev in Israel, and Dalhousie University, in Canada. When you remove the inflammatory fog from the brain, it acts as if it were young. This is an incredibly optimistic discovery in terms of brain plasticity. \”We can reverse brain ageing.\”
Source:
https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/news/drugs-that-quell-brain-inflammation-also-reverse-dementia-in-mouse-model-328039