Memory restoration in a bad brain

There are now a number of published studies that have revealed that the progression of Alzheimer’s-like pathologies can be slowed down by housing mice or rats in enriched (vs impoverished) environments. I’ll discuss this growing body of literature supporting the prophylactic or rejuvenative power of exercising your brain and body (at least if you’re a small rodent) by just learning new things and having fun every day, in future blogs. A new twist on this story comes from a study led by Dr. Li-Huei Tsai, a MIT scientist who (with her colleagues) has developed one of the most useful mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. At any age, Dr. Tsai can manipulate a gene in a mouse that leads to rapid, large-scale neurodegeneration. At its end stages, that degeneration is marked by the signature “plaques” and “tangles” that characterize AD. In a study reported in an advance online publication of the journal Nature, her group showed that they could induce large-scale pathological changes that result in dramatic brain shrinkage, and a dramatic simplification of neuronal interconnections. As a consequence, not surprisingly, their AD model mice became slow learners with bad memories. Tsai and colleagues then transferred a group of these far-over-the-hill mice into “enriched” (interesting, challenging, continuosly-changing, learning) environments. With this renewal of exploration and new learning and activity, these AD...
Source: On the Brain by Dr. Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Alzheimer’s Brain Fitness BrainHQ Posit Science Source Type: blogs