Researchers from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio have generated some exciting results with the use of Rapamycin in mice, with the mice showing improved learning capacity and memory throughout their lives.
Rapamycin is a bacterial product isolated from the soil of its namesake, Rapa Nui, the Polynesian name of the Easter Islands, famed for the hundreds of massive stone statues that dot its landscape.
Rapamycin was first used by the same researchers for tests involving Alzheimer's disease in mice, the results of which were published in 2010. In that study, Rapamycin showed an ability to reverse some of the learning and memory loss in mice with Alzheimer's-like deficits.
That led the team to study the drug's effects on otherwise healthy mice of varying ages. Young mice fed Rapamycin showed an increased ability to learn, and remember what they had learned. Older mice also benefitted from the drug, completely reversing the natural memory loss that occurs with aging.
There are several factors that are believed to be behind this improved cognition, which the scientists demonstrated in various tests. One was the lowered anxiety and depression-like levels of the mice, states that also lower cognition.
This was demonstrated in tests by which the mice were held by their tails, which they don't particularly care for (would you?). The mice given Rapamycin took great pains to extricate themselves from their situation (namely that human hand holding it by the tail), while other mice did not put up as much of a fight and gave in to their situation more readily.
Likewise, the mice received a boost to three "feel-good" neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.
"This is super-interesting, something we are going to pursue in the lab," said Veronica Galvan, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.
The increase of these chemical messengers in the brain is also believed to be a main reason for the drug's success in treating those mice from the 2010 study.
