Rejuivenate Your Brain with Umbilical Cord Blood

As brains age, they slowly lose the ability to generate new neurons, which results in a diminishing ability to learn new things and retain memories. But today a group of neuroscientists in Florida announced a strange cure for what amounts to brain decay: blood from the umbilical cords of human infants. When the researchers injected this blood into aging rats, it kickstarted a new round of neurogenesis in their brains, helping them to grow new neurons and shed some other effects of brain aging. Essentially, effects of aging were rolled back. There's tremendous potential here for helping aging humans to regain the plasticity of their youthful minds.

A release about the study explained:

Co-author Alison Willing, PhD, of the USF Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair [said,] "The increase in neurogenesis we saw after injecting UCBCs seemed to be due to a decrease in inflammation."

According to lead author Carmelina Gemma, Ph.D., of the James A. Haley Veterans Administration Medical Center (VA) and USF, the decrease in neurogenesis that accompanies aging is a result of the decrease in proliferation of stem cells, not the loss of cells.

"In the brain, there are two stem cell pools, one of which resides in the hippocampus," explained graduate student and first author Adam Bachstetter. "As in other stem cell pools, the stem cells in the brain lose their capacity to generate new cells. A potent stressor of stem cell proliferation is inflammation."

Prior to this study, the research team led by Paula C. Bickford, Ph.D., of the VA and USF found that reducing neuroinflammation in aged rats by blocking the synthesis of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL1B rescued some of the age-related decrease in neurogenesis and improved cognitive function.

"We think that UCBCs may have a similar potential to reduce inflammation and to restore some of the lost capacity of stem/progenitor cells to proliferate and differentiate into neurons," said Dr. Bickford.

It's almost as wild as that time in Battlestar Galactica when President Roslin's cancer went into remission after she got injected with Cylon blood. Except it's real. Image from Braincells Inc.

Umbilical Cord Blood Stimulates Neurogenesis [BMC Neuroscience]

4:17 PM on Mon Mar 10 2008
By Annalee Newitz
28,778 views
19 comments

Comments

newdeepdan at 04:30 PM on 03/10/08
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I think that the best way to express this is through that great episode of 'Family Guy' where Peter has a stroke and suffers from palsy and he walks into a stem cell research facility and walks out after five minutes completely cured and then saying "Why are we not funding this?!" on his way out.
Garrison Dean, King... at 04:37 PM on 03/10/08
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Connectedness Index: 140

Eat more babies... got it.
Epaminondas at 04:41 PM on 03/10/08
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Hmmm, can't we just eat fetuses (Fetie?) and get the same effect?
Log1c at 04:53 PM on 03/10/08
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Babies, the other, other white meat.
Liz Henry at 06:08 PM on 03/10/08
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And I thought placenta hair conditioner was perturbing. Mmmm, cord blood!
Grey_Area at 06:29 PM on 03/10/08
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"A Modest Proposal" heh, heh, heh.
blurey at 06:43 PM on 03/10/08
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the 1st time i heard about stem cells was in the show "babylon 5" were the dr. becomes addicted to them. yes this research sounds terrific! -blurey
corpore-metal at 06:50 PM on 03/10/08
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This is intriguing news. I'm sure they'll eventually figure out some way to do this without using fetal stem cells thus bypassing all the tedious controversy with the religious right.

But I have a question, doesn't increasing the plasticity mean older memories might be "written over?"
stjohn at 07:26 PM on 03/10/08
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OK, so let's isolate the active compounds responsible and put them in a fizzy energy drink, preferably one that complements top-shelf vodka.

In all seriousness, I'm wondering how long it will be before a placentamongering ring is busted operating out of local hospitals. But by the time this happens, it might be a necessity. Supposedly we'll have six or more careers in our lifetimes, and may well be working until we're 70. It would help to have fresh neural pathways to learn new skills.
strider_mt2k at 04:42 AM on 03/11/08
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Connectedness Index: 717

Won't someone think of the children?

-and how to prepare them?
Jeff-Minor at 05:03 AM on 03/11/08
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Annalee, this is where To Serve Man might come in handy. See if you can reprint a few recipes here.
Princess Stacey at 05:16 AM on 03/11/08
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"In the new world of the Future, we are ALL supervillains!"
- Stacey

Ok, I've got my ominous quote. Im ready for the new world of the future.
CMG at 06:06 AM on 03/11/08
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@stjohn: red bull and baby?
baltwade at 07:13 AM on 03/11/08
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For at least the last five or so years parents have had the option of banking their newborn's cord blood for around $5,000. Maybe I should have invested.
dscherck at 07:26 AM on 03/11/08
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@corpore-metal: We'd not want to use fetal stem cells on the brain anyways. The last time they did that, researchers found out that you can't turn them off. Link the the New England Journal of Medicine article here.

Besides, we can now make all the stem cells we want without the ethical concerns associated with embryonic stem cells. And who'd want to use embryonic cells anyways? Not only do they have major ethical issues associated with them, they simply haven't produced any real results, unlike non-embryonic stem cells.
Project Thanatos at 08:14 AM on 03/11/08
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If this proves to be successful in human test subjects... can it be mass produced and commercialized successfully?

I mean with the negative aspect of such substance coming from human fetuses, it's kinda of weird and may be branded as taboo despite it's incredible potential.
Pugcake at 08:57 AM on 03/11/08
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I have no problem with this, just scared if it gets out of hand. Would pregnant women from all over wake up in a strange room one night with their baby missing? Their fetus and umbilical cord sold in the black market like kidneys. My mind is imagining all sorts of different things! From baby eating cultist (which there probably are some) to ZOMBIES! I also had a thought of the people obsessed with looking younger harvesting fetuses to FEEL younger too.

Oh god, I just remembered this part in the manga "Uzumaki" (spoilers!) where these women were having babies, and the babies were regrowing their umbilical cord and people were harvesting and eating it. Then everyone went crazy and the babies were intelligent and obsessed with returning to the womb. So the doctors would cut the women back up and put the babies back in. The pregnant women were also drilling holes in people and sucking their blood. I love that manga =)
JCMasterpiece at 08:30 PM on 03/11/08
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Well, considering that this is umbilical cord blood from babies already born and not unborn babies, the ethical implications are relatively fewer. Umbilical cord blood has been seen as a better source than harvesting unborn children for a long time.

It has been politics that has kept the issue going. After all, why tell the truth about the problems with "fetal" stem cells and the clear advantages of a more ethical and appropriate source (umbilical cord & bone marrow stem cells) when by hiding the truth you can attempt to damage the pro-life movement and gain more support for the money tree that is the abortion industry just by ignoring certain unsightly data.
locotoro at 01:01 PM on 03/20/08
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Using umbilical stem cells gives the religious right anti-abortionists (George Bush)fodder for their media cannons. It is possible now to extract large amounts of stem cells from young children's blood. I went to South America for just such a treatment, and my kids only complained for a day or so. But instead of dying four years ago, they still have their Dad.