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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Actually it's co-orelation. Orelation is the raw material from which irony is made. That is, it's something which isn't quite irony, but out of which one could make irony. Co-orelation is when several people orelate together. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
They forgot it. It's the age, you know?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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
it was his FTP password. There. I spoiled the movie.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Fuck me!
I'd rather not.
He may have a medical condition like early onset Alzheimers.
Indeed, I specifically excluded people in that type of category.
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.
I didn't say it was easy, but if they can't find a way to exercise and lose weight, they are going to suffer the consequences. I mean, this is nature: nature doesn't care if it's hard. Hopefully for them they will be one of the lucky people who doesn't see any negative health effects even though they are overweight and treat their body badly. But it's not likely.
Incidentally, regarding the people who treat their bodies badly and still end up healthy, they usually have something else going on that balances it out. Like maybe they eat bacon every day, but they also eat spinach and get lots of exercise. Or maybe they party all night, but then balance it out by sleeping until the afternoon. It's rare to find people who truly abuse their bodies and don't end up paying for it.
Qxe4
Fuck me!
I'd rather not.
Figure of speech. I'd rather you didn't either.
He may have a medical condition like early onset Alzheimers.
Indeed, I specifically excluded people in that type of category.
No you didn't. Even so it's the vast majority of people in that category. How many 40 year olds do you know that don't have any medical conditions at all?
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.
I didn't say it was easy, but if they can't find a way to exercise and lose weight, they are going to suffer the consequences. I mean, this is nature: nature doesn't care if it's hard. Hopefully for them they will be one of the lucky people who doesn't see any negative health effects even though they are overweight and treat their body badly. But it's not likely.
Not easy? Try not possible for many. Yes you suffer the consequences but requiring that some people make a superhuman effort to meet your standards is ridiculous.
Incidentally, regarding the people who treat their bodies badly and still end up healthy, they usually have something else going on that balances it out. Like maybe they eat bacon every day, but they also eat spinach and get lots of exercise. Or maybe they party all night, but then balance it out by sleeping until the afternoon. It's rare to find people who truly abuse their bodies and don't end up paying for it.
What a complete load of BS. How many Hollywood drug addled boze ridden idiots only suffer the medical consequences of their stupidity when they accidentally overdose and end up "tragically" dead? I don't think a lot of those kinds of people do much to balance it out. Your belief in this fair kind of world where you're to blame if you have issues is well and truly a fantasy.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How many Hollywood drug addled boze ridden idiots only suffer the medical consequences of their stupidity when they accidentally overdose and end up "tragically" dead? I don't think a lot of those kinds of people do much to balance it out.
Very clearly they don't balance it out. That's why they end up dead.
Try not possible for many. Yes you suffer the consequences but requiring that some people make a superhuman effort to meet your standards is ridiculous.
OK, it sucks for those people that it's not possible for. But it's not like they are going to escape the consequences of being inactive just because they are stuck in the wheelchair. Obviously if someone is only limited because they have low willpower, the thing they need to work on is getting more willpower.
Qxe4
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.
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))
OK, it sucks for those people that it's not possible for. But it's not like they are going to escape the consequences of being inactive just because they are stuck in the wheelchair. Obviously if someone is only limited because they have low willpower, the thing they need to work on is getting more willpower.
Interesting that you should mention people in wheelchairs. Not too many of them actually have weight issues. Hauling your weight around in one of those things probably does burn energy, but still they can't do anything you'd call excercise. Not too many of them have to look after children and work 12+ hour days either. Stil if a sedentary lifestyle was all that it took you'd expect them to almost all be fat and dead at 30.
There are very real differences in makeup, metabolism, apetite and circumstance between people. Insisting that you're right to just blame it on a weak will is indefensible. You just don't get how lucky you are.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
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!
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.
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.
I didn't say it was easy, but if they can't find a way to exercise and lose weight, they are going to suffer the consequences. I mean, this is nature: nature doesn't care if it's hard. Hopefully for them they will be one of the lucky people who doesn't see any negative health effects even though they are overweight and treat their body badly. But it's not likely.
Not easy? Try not possible for many. Yes you suffer the consequences but requiring that some people make a superhuman effort to meet your standards is ridiculous.
For the past year I've started going 3 times a week to a nearby county gym at lunchtime. The county gives free membership to seniors, so 80% of the other people in there are old. Some of them are overweight, a lot of them seem to have health problems; often they're just slowly pedaling a stationary bike, slowly walking the treadmill, or sitting on an exercise ball. The important thing is, though, they're doing *something*, and over time that's better than doing nothing. It's not a superhuman effort, and it's certainly possible for almost everyone - if you can leave the house to work, you can do some exercise. Hell, even just taking the stairs rather than the elevator can help, but lots of people won't even take that small step. You just have to make it part of your routine, which is the real hard part for most people.
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.
Stil if a sedentary lifestyle was all that it took you'd expect them to almost all be fat and dead at 30.
There aren't very many people who die from a sedentary lifestyle by age 30.
There are very real differences in makeup, metabolism, apetite and circumstance between people. Insisting that you're right to just blame it on a weak will is indefensible. You just don't get how lucky you are.
I didn't blame it on a weak will. In fact I didn't blame it on anything. I don't even care about blame. You don't know how lucky I am either, how I've had to personally build up will-power.
But it doesn't matter. If you are sedentary, eat poorly, and don't sleep right, there are scientific studies that show bad things will happen. It's not a matter of opinion, and it doesn't matter why. Nature doesn't care.
Qxe4
I didn't blame it on a weak will. In fact I didn't blame it on anything. I don't even care about blame. You don't know how lucky I am either, how I've had to personally build up will-power.
But it doesn't matter. If you are sedentary, eat poorly, and don't sleep right, there are scientific studies that show bad things will happen. It's not a matter of opinion, and it doesn't matter why. Nature doesn't care.
You have been able to do it. Hence you are lucky. Others have not been able to despite their best efforts and fools like you just put them down as weak willed. Nature may not care but that doesn't mean we should be assholes to people who find it hard or even assume that just because we can do it others aren't trying hard enough.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
You have been able to do it.
Unless a person has a broken leg, or cancer or some other physical deformity, they are able to do it. Maybe they haven't figured out how to do it yet, or maybe they are lazy (heck, who isn't?), or maybe they just don't want to, but it isn't a question of ability. It's not like it's fun for anyone starting out, in fact, it's fairly miserable for everyone, I think. Once you get the hang of it though, once you feel the joy of pushing yourself, and seeing yourself grow stronger, it becomes worth the effort. I am not sure it ever becomes easy, for anyone, to exercise, but because you understand how great it is to push your limits, and because you've grown stronger, it becomes easier. You've become more than you thought possible, and that is such an amazing feeling.
In my experience, I've identified two different pains: one is the pain of your body being tired, and worn out; this is a pain you should pay attention to and rest. The other pain is the pain of laziness that comes up any time you do anything different, really. It can be quite strong at times, but it should be ignored and beaten down with a passion, otherwise it will handicap you. Even if all you do is step outside and walk 5 steps, then come back inside, at least you've done something. You've beaten the laziness pain, and it gets easier the more you do it. This is how you build up will power. If you can't even build up the will-power to step outside, try walking across your room and back. Or just stand up and sit down a few times. Start with whatever you can, then build up. But do something.
If the real problem is just low will-power, the solution is to build will-power. Sometimes being born with natural will-power isn't so good: I know this guy who just throws himself into everything as hard as he can, but he doesn't really think about what he is doing, so from my perspective it just looks like he is beating his head against the wall. To run faster, for example, he will try to put more effort, and he starts breathing really hard, but he doesn't think about how to run more efficiently. So in the end he bounces up and down, putting all that energy into the up/down movement when it could be better spent pushing him forward. I try to get him to slow down and think about what he is doing, but so far it hasn't worked.
Qxe4