A New Way to Restore and Regenerate Your Brain?

One of humankind’s greatest fears about aging is our bodies shutting down on us and no longer working as they should.

Our muscles waste away and our strength reduces. Our bones grow weaker and more brittle. Our organs stop functioning at optimum capacity, and our immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems grow less efficient with every passing year.

But for many of us, it’s fear of decreased brain function that’s truly terrifying. The idea of losing ourselves to Alzheimer’s or being unable to think clearly as a result of impaired or decreased cognition is one of the most common causes of age-related anxiety [1].

Science is always looking for new ways to slow—or even reverse—the effects of aging, to stave off the inevitable physical and cognitive decline that comes with growing old.

And we’ve got good news: one study has made some amazing discoveries that could be an absolute game-changer for aging gracefully.

The Secret Weapon: Neural Stem Cells

The study, led by researchers and neuroscientists from Duke-NUS Medical School [2], examined what happens when neural stem cells are reactivated, and how that reactivation might have long-term benefits for the brain.

A quick explanation on neural stem cells: Neural stem cells are “largely undifferentiated cells originating in the central nervous system.” [3] These cells have the ability to produce “offspring cells” that can grow and turn into both neurons and the non-neuronal glial cells that protect your neurons and allow for faster communication between neurons.

Neural stem cells are found in the hippocampus, in the striatum, the neocortex, and, most importantly, in the spinal cord. When stimulated (via drugs, as illustrated in past tests), neural stem cells can trigger the proliferation of neural cells, which leads to neurogenesis and the regeneration of the brain following strokes and brain damage.

Science is looking into multiple means of using these neural stem cells to treat neurological conditions—everything from brain injuries to multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s to stroke damage—and the early findings are promising.

Now, the research conducted at Duke-NUS Medical School has the potential to take our understanding of—and perhaps, one day, our use of—neural stem cells to a whole new level.

The research examined methods of “waking up” dormant neural stem cells. During the initial development of the human brain (in pregnancy and during childhood), the neural stem cells are fully active, leading to wholesale cellular proliferation. However, they eventually enter a state of dormancy (to conserve energy) and only “wake up” in response to physical exercise or following an injury.

As we age, the dormant cells become harder to “wake up”, and fewer cells respond every time. By examining how best to reactivate these dormant neural stem cells, the researchers hoped to find a path to treating neurological and cognitive decline using the body’s own regenerative mechanisms.

The study was conducted on fruit flies, who were given SUMO (small ubiquitin-like modifier) proteins that interact with target proteins inside neural stem cells. When the proteins inside the neural stem cells were tagged, it triggered them to “wake up” and reactivate. This led to proliferation of critical neurons and glial cells, which in turn had the potential to enhance cognition.

The researchers also made two bonus discoveries from this study:

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• An absence of SUMO proteins can lead to underdevelopment. In the fruit flies that were not treated with the SUMO proteins, a microcephaly-like phenotype was produced. (Microcephaly is a birth defect where babies heads grow to a smaller-than-average size.) This suggested an under-development of their brains resulting from lack of these SUMO proteins that stimulate neural stem cells.

• SUMO also regulates proteins in the Hippo pathway. The Hippo cellular pathway plays a central role in cellular apoptosis, cellular proliferation, and the growth of organs to their proper size. SUMO modifies the Warts protein that is plays a primary role in the Hippo pathway, which in turn increases the activation and function of neural stem cells that contribute to brain function.

This no doubt sounds immensely complex, and the truth is that, yes, this discovery is just one step forward in our understanding of the human brain. But it’s ONE STEP FORWARD! We’re getting closer to fully comprehending the brain’s internal mechanisms for repair and growth, and the more we understand, the closer we can come to making full use of it.

As the lead researcher said in an interview with Science Daily [4], “Disruptions in the SUMOylation process and Hippo pathway are linked to various illnesses in humans, including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Our new insights into the role of SUMOylation in the brain opens exciting new opportunities for interventions that could lead to targeted therapies that harness the body's own regenerative powers."

How You Can Increase Neural Stem Cell Today

The study above looked at using a specific protein to address the issue of awakening dormant neural stem cells. None of us have access to that SUMO protein, so you may think, “A discovery like this, which promises big things in the future, isn’t going to help me protect and enhance my brain function today!”

And you’d be right about that. But thankfully, there are things that will make a difference now—chief among them, physical exercise.

Countless studies have shown the benefits of exercise for your brain function, but specific research identifies exercise as being potentially effective at stimulating the activity of the same neural stem cells targeted by SUMO.

One study [5] looked at the effects of physical exercise on rat brains, and found that the rats who underwent a rigorous training program had better brain function, fewer inflammatory and inhibitory neurochemicals, and greater proliferation of cells. Exercise enhanced their cognition significantly, without anything else required to improve neural stem cell activation.

The rats ran on a treadmill for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, and they saw noticeable improvement in their brain function and neural stem cell activation.

You can do that, too, can’t you? Even if you don’t do that exact same exercise, 30 minutes per day, five days per week is a very reasonable amount of exercise that most people should be able to fit into their days.

If you’re not a runner, why not try something else?

• Lift weights

• Play a team sport

• Ride a bike

• Take a dance, Yoga, or martial arts class

• Box

• Use an elliptical or stair climber machine

Really, just do anything that gets you moving throughout the day, because that physical activity could be a game-changer. As research has proven, it will increase neural stem cell activation and help repair and regenerate your brain, staving off decline and helping you age gracefully.

Wrapping Up

Science still has a long way to go, but every new discovery gives us greater insight that gets us one step closer to understanding the full extent of the human brain.

Knowing the power of neural stem cells—and the SUMO protein that can activate them—is exciting, because though it’s only small improvement now, it may have long-lasting and far-reaching positive consequences and lead to the development of new therapies, treatments, and remedies that could be game-changing for our brain.

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