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Researchers Restore Youthful Memory In Aging Mice
An anonymous reader writes "German neuroscientists made a breakthrough in 'age-related cognitive decline', a common condition that often begins in one's late 40s (especially declarative memory — the ability to recall facts and experiences). Their new study identifies a genetic 'switch' for the cluster of learning and memory genes that cause memory impairment in aging mice. By injecting an enzyme, the team 'flipped' the switch to its on position for older mice, giving them the memory and learning performance they'd enjoyed when they were young. Now the team ultimately hopes to recover seemingly lost long-term memory in human patients." The video, which explains the gene flipping mechanism, is worth a watch (2:18).
So they remember everything, but they don't know anything?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm not in my 40's yet and I already need this done to me...
My grandmother slowly died of Alzheimer's and it could not have been a sadder thing to witness. Bias fully admitted, I can't help but say... Alzheimer's is the 7th leading cause of death and it afflicts 19% of people aged 75-84 and over 40% of people over 84. If we care about our elders and we care about the shoes we will one day fill, we should all help raise awareness and put our spare money and time to good use.
The toll of Alzheimer's on America is estimated at about $100 billion per year. If only we could convince Congress of the simple truth, that this sort of basic research will completely pay for itself in the long run and do wonders for humanity. Unfortunately, we can't depend on someone else to pay for this knowledge and progress. We must all pitch in what we can and help keep this sort of research as well funded as possible.
www.alz.org is a great organization if you have money to donate. Or you can easily start a "Memory Walk" team to go out for a charity walk to raise money and awareness. Plus, can't we all use a good excuse to enjoy a nice day in the sun and have fun with friends and family?
can I have an injection of that please? :P
When I'm old I'll be able to recall how i misspent my youth. How depressing!
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
I was looking forward to an old age filled with pleasant memories of my many moon landings, that time I helped a young Jewish girl hide from the Spaniards, my service in the Gulf of Afgiraq, and my sexual exploits with Morgan Fairchild. And now you're going to take that away from me?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
While declarative memory does decline as one ages, only recall memory is affected while the ability to recognize does not significantly decline.
That is, people over 40 tend to decline in scores on fill-in-the-blank tests without a word bank (that require the taker to recall a specific answer) while staying about the same on multiple choice tests, where the answer must be recognized.
but I'll say it again: never before in our history has there been such a good time as now to be a mouse!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You can hide your own Easter eggs, and you can laugh at the same joke every day! Of course they have problems too... like they forget to take their meds, and no one remembers to show up for the support group meetings.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That's my age. I do notice tt takes just a wee bit more effort to cram more stuff in my head than it used to. Other than that, I still enjoy my ability to recall ridicules bits of obscure minutia that when viewed in total aren't enough to get me a good job, but are just enough to be annoying.
Seriously, though. My ability to commit stuff to memory and recall it *IS* one of my marketable skills. And anything that can help prolong the decline is welcome news.
Just because you injected enzymes into the rats, doesn't mean that the enzymes caused the increased memory effect
ok, ok, I'm joking. At least we got the stupid "coorelation != causation" comment out of the way early on.
I'm hoping they can bring this to the public sooner rather than later. It's not funny when you can't remember stuff the way you used to, it's a little scary. I accept that it's part of getting older, but I don't accept it happily.
Best regards.
Well, illegal unless you live in Mendocino County...
Oh, now I know what switch instantly gets flipped to off when you first read slashdot...
That explains a lot...
wake up and hold your nose
I'd just like to point out that this is a good article:
1. It's news for nerds.
2. It goes into some technical detail (molecules named)
3. It mentions both possible advantages and disadvantages of the approach.
4. It has both reasonable amounts of text and a decent video. (read:content)
Really, this is probably the kind of article people refer to when they're whining about other ones.
I'd love some feedback from the people who go on about kdawson only posting crap, too. Is this crap? Or maybe you prefer to cherry-pick the bad articles instead to hate on the hated editor of the month/year?
Seriously, do we really want to be fully aware of our suffering as we age and our mortality? Seems nature was doing us a favor by making us oblivious to our own demise.
Languages have always interested me (it's what I do for a living these days), and every couple years I try to learn the basics of another language. I find that as long as I exercise the newly learned skill/material, I'm OK (such as reading newspapers in the other language, listening to broadcasts in that language, and finally speaking the language whenever I get the chance. I would imagine I'm using a different part of the brain for these activities, though.
I'm certainly no expert, nor do I claim to know anything of how the mind works for that matter, but I can't help but think that actually using skills learned later in life helps.
By injecting an enzyme, the team 'flipped' the switch to its on position for older mice, giving them the memory and learning performance they'd enjoyed when they were young.
The most important information is missing.
Some things are best left forgotten.
Unless they can do this selectively, I'll pass. One gets to a certain age...well, the baggage seems to fade away yet the really good stuff remains clear.
I think this is a good thing, and in my opinion quite possibly a natural function of the human mind--a defense mechanism, perhaps.
Actually, it's pretty easy for me to remember, I just used the same passwords/phrases/pin-numbers since 1985... ;^)
Posting anon for obvious reasons
Oh, I remember now...
It reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the mice.
If we develop a method to create super intelligence and test it on mice first, then they will recognise that fact and play dumb.
You make new friends every day, you're constantly seeing a lot of really great movies for the first time, and in lucid moments, you plan your escape because "things aren't as bad as the doctors are making them out to be"...
Maybe I can recall where I lost my keys 20 years ago.
Poor animals that went before these...
Nov 21 - I did a dumb thing today I forgot I wasnt in Miss Kinnians class at the adult center any more like I use to be. I went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she lookd at me funny and she said Charlie where have you been. So I said hello Miss Kinnian Im redy for my lessen today only I lossed the book we was using.
Lying a lot helps a lot. Try, say, cheating on your S.O. with a disastrous divorce as a consequence and just keep track of all the particulars of the lies you tell. It's as much or more conditioning and impetus as it is genes.
ideopath @ play
If you're that young and already having memory problems (assuming you don't have a brain tumor or something), it's lifestyle related. Get out and exercise, eat well, there's probably some nutrient you're missing. Eat lot's of broccoli. Sleep enough. Don't under-estimate the brain wasting effects of alcohol or cocaine. I don't know you so I can't say exactly what your personal problem is.
Fuck me! Not all human beings are the same and what's true for you might not necessarily be true for the parent. Suggesting that he eat some broccoli, and insinuating that he's got drug and alcohol problems is borderline criminal. He may have a medical condition like early onset Alzheimers. Correct thing to do if he's not just being melodramatic is to see on or more doctors.
A lot of people, for example, don't eat enough vegetables. They'll eat a salad once a week or an apple every few days or something and hope that's good enough. It's not. You may not notice the effects right away, but over time they will add up as your body uses up its stored nutrients.
A lot of people who have treated their bodies like SHIT have been sharp as a tack into their 70s and 80s. This idea that if someone has to be doing something wrong in order to have a medical issue belongs in the dark ages. Of course treating your body well will make the most of your situation, but that doesn't mean it'll work miracles.
By the way try getting a full night's sleep, eating properly and excercising when you have a couple of kids under 2. a sick partner and a job that ties up 12 hours of your day 5 or 6 days a week. Or if you have a sleep disorder. Try excercising if you're overweight and have some kind of physical injury. The trouble with unhealthy is that a couple of issues can then lead to a spiral. This idea that someone can click their fingers and excercise some will power to get healthy is a luxurious dellusion only healthy people with too much spare time can afford. Not everyone is fresh out of college with no kids and a cushy job.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
it was his FTP password. There. I spoiled the movie.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Because I'm almost 50 and have healthier eating, exercising, and sleeping habits than probably 90% of the geeks on /. and I can tell you that I definitely notice a loss of memory and brain function from when I was in my 30's.
Being healthy might minimize the effects, but it definitely does not prevent it from happening entirely.
It wasn't like the fucking rodents weren't gaining the upper hand again already. Now were going to make them smarter. They damn near took over 700 years ago with the plague thing, but we beat them back. Now were going to help them remember more? Shit, it'll be like dealing with the Rat Things in Starman's Son; furry vermin with spears and the racial memory of millions of rat traps and kids with .22s.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
There are some aspects of my youth that I care not to remember...
you can get molecularly distilled fish oil, this has the heavy metals and pcb's/bromo-blah's etc removed. and it can be very cheap so price is no excuse. in fact ive used several brands of fish oils for over a decade and feel that ive noticed a significant difference between the quality of different brands.
on the price issue, you can get capsules that dont mention any distillation or any heavy metal levels or such, from your supermarket and this is what most people buy because of convenience. easy to swallow a capsule and you dont have to be concerned with the taste of the fish oil. but i highly recommend against this.
i recommend buying a liquid oil getting it sent from a wholesaler so you know its fresh (and hasnt been sitting on a shelf for 1year+) then keeping the bottle in your fridge, and taking spoonfuls when you dose, but otherwise keeping it in the fridge. remember the good oils go rancid, so i treat the photo-oxidation and thermal issue seriously.
i am going to plug a couple of brands. Firstly, Melrose, http://www.melrosehealth.com.au/, is awesome and really cheap, cheaper than the bulk supermarket stuff and infinitely more efficacious. I now see from their website that they have a new product, the 18/12 fish oil, i used to buy their cod liver oil so my comments regarding the possibility of being limited by the level of vitA was directed towards the cod liver oil product. i havnt actually tried their 18/12 fish oil, but it looks good, i guess they had to keep up with the competition.
then, slightly more expensive but i feel its well worth it to get the top quality, there is Metagenics, specifically, Ultra Dha/epa distillates, https://www.metagenics.com.au/shop/index.cfm?fuseaction=item&id=602 , this is personally what i recommend. there are a couple of reasons.
if you just take cod liver oil, its easy to overdose on vitamin A. i find the amount of vitA is a limit on the amount of oil you can take and also find too much vitA makes me flushed and hyper and it feels unpleasant. look up vitA overdose, it is certainly detrimental.
The ultra dha product above is mostly just dha, so you dont have to worry about overdosing on vitA, and it allows you to get an effective dose with only a few ml's, it turns out that dha is only a few percentage as a constituent of most fish oils, so you would need to take 50ml or so of most fish oil to actually get an effective dose of dha(depending on your needs/reasons for supplementing (are you taking it for cardovascular=eps, neuro=dha))
A friend of mine is a veterinarian, and he says that animals have been getting the same health complications as humans all since feeding the animals processed mashed corn rather than graze them naturally on herbs.
Makes you wonder about all the biproducts passing on ingredients, like Silicon Dioxide and food colorings.
seconded.
And if like me you're living in a place which is not flat, go for an electric bike.
Flattens all climbs (if you choose >=400W), same effort when flat if you just flip a switch... and indeed you can commute with it for distances up to 15-20 Km.
Herve S.
I actually have great memory recall from my childhood, but it seems to me maybe thats good people forget things.
It's how we deal with life and move on.
What I'd rather they figure out is how to keep your short term memory intact.
oh, that doesn't involve: not smoking weed.
Be seeing you...
One shouldn't take _any_ supplemental Vit A as it blocks the infintely more important Vit D. See the Vitamin D Council dot org. If I had them I'd toss some mod points your way. Good post.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
39 now and starting to notice memory issues.
Bring on the drugs!
It may be worse when you are tired or in bad shape, but some people are not made for learning by heart. I had a hell of a time learning multiplication tables (for example) while all other learning-related tasks has been easy before and after that.
While I don't remember my current phone number, I still remember my family's phone number back from when I was 6 years old. But maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was just 4 digits: 3309. The year was 1979, and we lived in what was then the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
This is fantastic! This is the second most important thing I'd like to have with a switch flipped to "young".
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I would be concerned with what other functions are connected to that gene. You wouldn't want your memory restored but then find that you can't digest proteins or something.
But I forgot what it was....
...I was hoping he'd forget that whole "cheese incident..."