Human Umbilical Cord Blood Can Help Rejuvenate Brains

STATES CHRONICLE – Scientists developed a new study in which they proved that human umbilical cord blood helps rejuvenate brain cells, strengthening memory. A few years ago, scientists had performed surgery on rats and attached an older rat to a young one through a bloodstream. They proved that the old rat managed to live longer when they had a common bloodstream with young rats.

Human umbilical cord blood can help rejuvenate particular genes in the brain

These findings were fantastic for researchers who struggled to discover more data even if the experiment was pretty complex. Nevertheless, they have indicated that blood from a young specimen can restore the activity of cells in the livers and muscles of old mice. Experts also found out that when connecting an old mouse to a young one helped them overturn the thickening of the heart muscle.

On the other hand, scientists could not replicate their discovery, and a different study suggested that when mice exchanged blood without using a surgical connection, the dangerous effects of old blood exposure overbalanced the benefits of young blood use. Just like humans, once mice age, their body changes together with their behavior. Older mice are no longer capable of building nests and become forgetful. It takes them a longer period to remember the exit from the maze.

For now, scientists only managed to prove that this is possible in the case of rats

Joe Castellano, a neuroscientist at Stanford University School of Medicine, stated that there is a huge difference between young and older mice when it comes to their performance. Castellano together with his colleagues was wondering whether they can reveal the same mechanism by using human umbilical cord blood. The new report was recently published in Nature magazine.

Scientists announced that they discovered a protein present in the human umbilical cord blood which was proved to enhance memory and learning in older rats. This represents an amazing discovery for the regenerative medicine’s field.  Nevertheless, there is no proof that this mechanism will work in the same way for humans.

To develop the new report, Castellano and his team collected plasma from people of distinct ages and then they also collected some blood samples from human umbilical cord. After this, they injected human plasma coming from those distinct age groups and also some umbilical cord blood into older mice. These mice were 12 and 14 months old, being the equivalent of the late 50s or 60s for humans.

The results indicated that certain genes related to making new memories were activated in older mice. Do you believe that this could be possible for humans in the future, too? Could scientists find the secret of a long life?

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