London – The secret of a squirrel’s hibernation could hold the key to preventing Alzheimer’s.
Other devastating conditions, including Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, could also be avoided or delayed, thanks to a British breakthrough.
Scientists from the Medical Research Council in Leicester have shown how a deep hibernation-like sleep cools the brain and protects it from degenerative diseases. The discovery could lead to a drug that stops a host of crippling illnesses in their tracks. Given in middle age, it could keep the brain healthy for longer.
Alzheimer’s charities described the research as exciting and said it could have ‘wide-reaching benefits’.
Giovanna Mallucci got the idea for her research after hearing what happens to a squirrel’s brain when it hibernates. When the animal’s body temperature drops to conserve energy during its long winter slumber, connections between brain cells are broken. This stops messages being sent from cell to cell and helps put the brain into a deep sleep.
When the creatures come out of hibernation, the cell-to-cell connections, called synapses, re-form, and work perfectly.
Because broken synapses are a classic early feature of neurodegenerative diseases in people, Professor Mallucci decided to see if she too could fix them. She gave healthy mice a drug that cooled them down to the 16-18degC of a hibernating squirrel and put them in a deep sleep.
The synapses in the mouse brains broke up, then re-formed when the creatures were warmed up again. Crucially, levels of a protein called RBM3 rose.
In contrast, mice in the early stages of an Alzheimer’s-like illness were unable to re-form their synapses when coming out of ‘hibernation’. And they did not make more RBM3.
However, when these mice were given an injection that raised levels of RBM3, the brain connections re-formed, according to the journal Nature. If RBM3 also keeps human synapses healthy, a drug that increases levels could keep Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases at bay.
Professor Hugh Perry, of the Medical Research Council, said: ‘We now need to find something to reproduce the effect of brain cooling. We need to find drugs which can induce the effects of hibernation.’
Dr Eric Karran, of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘Research to uncover the key biological mechanisms keeping brain cells healthy is important, as it provides more avenues for investigation in the search for treatments that could make a real difference to people’s lives.’
Daily Mail