5 ms·
tl;dr: found that human umbilical cord plasma (= blood minus cells) improves old mice brain function (plasticity, memory), then teased out which protein in the
by car 10y ago
tl;dr: found that human umbilical cord plasma (= blood minus cells) improves old mice brain function (plasticity, memory), then teased out which protein in the cord plasma seems to have this effect (TIMP2) and showed that it is actively transported across blood-brain barrier (by marking it radioactively).
Since this worked across species barriers, it can be speculated that a similar effect would be seen when administering TIMP2 in humans. It'll be exciting to see what comes of clinical studies, which are under way.
[EDIT]:tone down expectations
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- AstralStorm 10y agoThen efficacy, safety and long term safety have to be verified. Apparently it is nowhere near as clear cut as expected. See the NPR article linked below.
- car 10y agoThe effects of TIMP2 described are very distinct. The paper was submitted in 2015, so it must have undergone a lot of scrutiny by reviewers with requests for additional experiments. How this pans out in humans and in the long term is a different story.
- f4rker 10y agoNpr is not a great news source
- maguirre 10y agohow come?
- mannykannot 10y agoA paucity of alternative facts, perhaps?
- epmaybe 10y agoAre you saying that NPR doesn't have many alternative facts? I think the point the original comment was trying to make was more that NPR doesn't have much in depth coverage when it comes to science. You'll think NPR does an exemplary job when it comes to content you don't know much about. But when you're more knowledgeable about the field being covered, you start to see minor inaccuracies to "dumb down" the concepts. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily, it gets the point across without being too wrong.
- mannykannot 10y agoYou are speculating as much as I am about what f4ker's cryptic and uninformative post actually meant. If he meant what you think he meant, he could simply have written a note about what, specifically, in the NPR article is simplistic. I do not see any way around news sources being simplified, to some extent, about everything, and you appear to agree. Do you think NPR's news is notably "not great" in that regard? Its liberal bias shows, but not in a way that strikes me as deceptive.
- epmaybe 10y agoI'm not the authority on journalism by any means, but I'm happy to provide my own take. There have been some stories on NPR (and most news sites as far as I can tell) that I've felt more knowledgeable about, and realized things were being simplified to make it easier to digest. I guess another way of putting it would be that at first glance, you think NPR is awesome, and does a great job of covering the news. But then at second glance, you realize that while not intentional, it's just not as detailed or complete as you'd like it to be.
- f4rker 10y agoNot enough quality control
- amelius 10y agoIsn't this protein already found in human plasma?