Julianna Maisano
Professor Raskin
Neuroscience Across the Curriculum
2 November 2015
Tony Wyss-Coray’s Lecture, Young Blood for Old Brains
On Tuesday, October 26, 2015 Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray, a neuroscientist from the Stanford University School of Medicine spoke about his research on the immune system and injury responses in aging and neurodegeneration (Wyss-Coray Laboratory, 2015). A Professor of Neurology and member of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Dr. Wyss-Coray has devoted his time to researching the process of aging, specifically the role the blood plays throughout the process. To conduct his research, Dr. Wyss-Coray and his team uses parabiosis, a clinical research method that anatomically joins joining of two individuals to examine the effects of physiological processes (Wyss-Coray, 2015).
Aging can be defined as an alteration intercellular communication, a process with happens all throughout the body. While the process of aging impacts us all, it is one that can effect us all differently and at different times. Blood, our source of life and connection between organs, is representative of aging properties as well. To determine if aging in blood was a true determinant in regulating the aging process, Dr. Wyss-Coray examined hormone like proteins within the blood. He found that the rate at which plasma ages is dependent upon both genetic and environmental factors.
To validate whether or not our blood is truly the source of the “Fountain of Youth” Dr. Wyss-Coray and his team used parabiosis to surgically connected young and old mice to see if the healthy aspects of blood plasma in the young mouse transferred over to the blood of the old mouse to slow the aging process. He concluded that the brain from an older mouse can appear younger and cause the mouse to act more youthful when exposed to this specific systemic environment.
Dr. Wyss-Coray’s novel research studies on the parabiosis in mice allows us to better understand the role the blood plays in the process of aging. While it is known that cord plasma is an excellent source of rejuvenation for cells, the knowledge can now be used to determine if plasma levels are able to rejuvenate the brain. He discovered that brains of old mice are much more suceptible to change than we think they are and are able to experience rejuvenation. His current and future research hopes to examine hippocampal activity within the mice through various functional memory tests, such as the Barnes maze to further evaluate memory and the aging process in mice. Dr. Wyss-Coray is optimistic that his research will be able to aid in the research of one of the most well known and studied neurodegenerative diseases that is typically associated with aging, Alzheimer’s disease. He is currently treating Alzheimer’s patients with plasma form twenty-year-old donors to look for functional and cognitive improvements. To conclude, Dr. Wyss-Coray stated that the fountain of youth not only exists, but runs inside of us, it is in our blood.
References
Wyss-Coray Laboratory. (2015). Retrieved from http://web.stanford.edu/group/twclab/cgi-bin/
Wyss-Coray, T. (2015, October 26). Young Blood for Old Brains. Lecture Lecture presented 25th
Year Celebration of the Neuroscience Program in Washington Room, Hartford, CT.