Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 17th 2021

This study is consistent with previous evidence showing that inflammaging, or age-related inflammation, is naturally heightened in the nervous system. Moreover, the authors disproved their hypothesis that anti-inflammatory microglia-specific genes are responsible for the elevated inflammatory response in aged brains since the expression of anti-inflammatory mediators was elevated in middle-aged brains following infection. Thus, the cause for the increase in pro-inflammatory genes remains to be elucidated. Mixed Results in Animal Studies of Gene Therapy Targeting Axonal Regrowth https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/05/mixed-results-in-animal-studies-of-gene-therapy-targeting-axonal-regrowth/ Researchers here attempted a combination gene therapy using BDNF and TrkB in order to provoke growth of axons in the mouse optic nerve and brain. The hope is to produce enough repair and regrowth to outpace for a time the disease process that causes damage. This seemed to have positive results in the optic nerve, but less so when applied to a mouse model of tauopathy. The regenerative medicine community might argue that sufficiently comprehensive regenerative will help, and functional recovery following treatment is a matter of the balance between degree of regeneration versus degree of harm caused by the disease process. It remains the case that addressing the causes of the condition may also be necessary to achieve positive results in patients. A common f...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs