Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray | Hacker News Reader

Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray

stories.tamu.edu

198 pointscybermango86 comments

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"Reverse brain aging", sure, in the same sense that taking Vitamin C reverses aging.

The nasal spray reduced markers of inflammation in hippocampal microglial cells.

A lot of things reduce inflammation. That is not "reversing ageing".

Of course, "reduces inflammation" doesn't headline very well...

The article is also heavily ai generated, I call bs on every single bit

c'mon you guys, chill. this is not a vaccine.

I thought the url said temu at first.

Hah! Me too.

Kinda surprised A&M’s letting them use AI to write these things

>>The article is also heavily ai generated

can you please share your methodology for detecting ai please?

Vibes. It is in the vibes.

Just a heads up, you're firmly in Poe's Law territory.

Poe’s Law is the very essence of AI.

“The most surprising part? It all happened within weeks and lasted for months.”

That’s an AI tell. It may not be entirely LLM-generated, the various direct quotations help a lot, but there are touches that definitely feel like an LLM had a hand here.

That's not an "AI tell". If you read anything in recent decades, this is a turn of speech human writers wrote for ages and still write.

"It's not just x, it's y." Absolutely clear tell, especially at this frequency. Examples from the article below:

"Over decades, it doesn’t just wear down, it also starts to run hot." "... the therapy didn’t just clear brain fog, it physically improved the brain’s ability to process and store information."

The quotes as well: "'... Not just living longer, but living smarter and healthier,' Shetty said." "'We aren’t just trying to understand the biological mechanisms, we are translating and developing our findings into real-world therapies that could make a difference,' Shetty said."

What that is is a tell of bad writing

It's a tell of not writing. It is extremely well-documented as a tell of AI writing.

It’s a tell now. I see it I assume AI and disregard.

Anybody who still writes using their own mind has stopped using that pattern, along with others. "The thing nobody tells you:" is no longer used by decent writers.

Yeah, like nobody uses em dashes anymore right?

I know lots of writers who have (reluctantly) stopped using em-dashes. Many replaced them with colons, and are now wondering what they will replace colons with.

I know people who didn't:) Looks like we both know people.

I'm long on semi-colons

I guess all AI writing patterns are copied from human writing. The tell is that you get patterns like that more frequently than with human writing and in odd places.

It's funny if you look at the paper https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev... how different it is from the article. They basically tried their spray on 18 month old mice and then dissected their brains at 20.5 months to check inflammation.

>>It's funny if you look at the paper https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev... how different it is from the article

i can sense the lack of capacity for reasoning in your comment. it's okay. the paper and the article are written by two very different people. the article is written by someone in the communications team, who communicate "what's going on at the university" to the outside world . the paper is written by the actual scientists.

>tried their spray on 18 month old mice and then dissected their brains at 20.5 months

is not the same facts as

>It all happened within weeks and lasted for months

I suspect LLM hallucination rather than different people. Or maybe I missed the bit where they tested it lasting for months?

Interesting, I wish I read the paper but somehow didn't encounter links. This takes it from bad writing to terrible journalism to be honest. Can't defend it...

>>That’s an AI tell

do you have any other explanation other than tells? - maybe your tarot cards might have better explanation.

AI generated? Not demonstrated.

Whining by humans claiming AI? Predictable. Probable. Indeed LLM "complete the sentence" predictable.

Sure, a human could be deliberately trying to sound like AI writing, or perhaps they've spent so much time reading it that they think it's normal.

This entire thread reads like I got flamed by LLM bots

This is the current big grift in anti-aging science:

1 - Find a marker correlated with aging across a large sample

2 - Find a medication or supplement that also alters that marker

3 - Do some before and after measurements of the marker with the supplement or medication, and claim that you have reversed aging. Rely on the fact that enough readers won’t look closely enough to wonder if the marker is a true independent variable that represents aging.

There is a pop theory that aging is just scurvy in slow motion and Vitamin C hypersupplementation actually goes a long way in staving it off.

Asking this honestly...if certain kinds of inflammation tend to accelerate aging, and those inflammations can be controlled or decreased, does that, in effect, at least slow (if not actually reverse) aging? Granted that the headline is sensationalized, it seems like there may still be a point being made that is valid.

High impact journal for an interesting study that is admittedly largely out of my area of expertise. The limitation of it being done in animal models, is of course, noted, but also expected. The question I would ask is how well the underlying background research makes this outcome expected.

Damn, that’s one hell of a way to say “is this any good though?”. Too many words for such a simple question.

Pretty much, lol. I started to say some other things but decided to say less.

But "how well the underlying background research makes this outcome expected" does not mean "is this any good though".

It's also an actually interesting question.

It's one thing to find some things hard to follow, it's another to be proud of it.

That's exactly what I want: immortal mice!

That's a surprisingly underused plot for a sci Fi horror film.

Considering the grand total of experiments we've ran on the little guys, I'm kinda surprised we haven't bred Mousezilla yet

Or Pinky & the Brain

The Secret of NIMH

See also: “Flowers for Algernon”

You joke, but rodents make great pets, because they are very social and have a range of personalities, but most only live a few years. I knew someone with a pet retired lab rat, and it lived much longer than the average fancy rat, but even then, it didn't even live half as long as the average cat or dog.

If we could breed or treat rodents to live longer, we could keep low-resource pets without as much loss.

There is an excellent "This American Life" episode on rats. The first act is about a guy who keeps rats as pets. It's a sweet story.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/801/transcript

Story from April;

Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48288478

Many Brain-aging study sample pools are from young folks that died in accidents, aged homeless alcoholics, and individuals that were in declining health.

Most cultures find it taboo to donate their beloved family members bodies for scientific dissection. Thus, people get ingrained "[bigotry] with extra steps" similar to phrenology proponents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

"Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance" =3

Flowers for Algernon’s Brain

This short story was scarier to me as a kid than anything else I read at the time.

The movie adaptation — “Charlie” — is heartbreakingly good.

This one? Not called “Charlie” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210044/

That's a 2000 remake of the 1968 film.

Also, I misspelled the title: It's "Charly"

https://youtu.be/ddtNxb43yYo?si=XnXdl1J-w3NjHXQq

TFA reeks of over-sensationalizing. Here is a summary sans hyperbole:

Intranasal Human NSC-Derived EVs Therapy Can Restrain Inflammatory Microglial Transcriptome, and NLRP3 and cGAS-STING Signalling, in Aged Hippocampus[1].

Abstract:

> Neuroinflammaging, a moderate, chronic, and sterile inflammation in the hippocampus, contributes to age-related cognitive decline. Neuroinflammaging comprises the activation of the nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat family, and pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes, and the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway that triggers type 1 interferon (IFN-1) signalling. Studies have shown that extracellular vesicles from human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural stem cells (hiPSC-NSC-EVs) contain therapeutic miRNAs that can alleviate neuroinflammation. Therefore, this study examined the effects of late middle-aged (18-month-old) male and female C57BL6/J mice receiving two intranasal doses of hiPSC-NSC-EVs on neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus at 20.5 months of age. Compared with animals receiving vehicle treatment, the hippocampus of animals receiving hiPSC-NSC-EVs exhibited reductions in astrocyte hypertrophy, microglial clusters, and oxidative stress, along with elevated expression of antioxidant proteins and genes that maintain mitochondrial respiratory chain integrity. Moreover, hiPSC-NSC-EVs therapy decreased the levels of various proteins involved in the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, p38/mitogen-activated protein kinase, cGAS-STING-IFN-1, and Janus kinase and signal transducer and activator of transcription signalling pathways. Furthermore, in vitro assays using genetically engineered RAW cells and hiPSC-NSC-EVs, with or without targeted depletion of specific miRNAs, demonstrated that miRNA-30e-3p and miRNA-181a-5p, both present in hiPSC-NSC-EVs, can significantly inhibit the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and the STING pathway, respectively. Additionally, single-cell RNA sequencing conducted 7 days post-treatment revealed that hiPSC-NSC-EVs induce widespread transcriptomic changes in microglia, including increased expression of numerous genes that enhance oxidative phosphorylation and reduced expression of abundant genes that drive multiple proinflammatory signalling pathways. These changes mediated by hiPSC-NSC-EVs were also associated with improved cognitive and memory function. Thus, intranasal hiPSC-NSC-EVs therapy in late middle age can effectively diminish proinflammatory microglial transcriptome and signalling cascades that drive neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus, contributing to better brain function in old age.

[1]: https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev...

How soon until biohackers try this on themselves?

The failure scenarios are fun to imagine, like uncontrollable brain growth or waking nightmares as weird side effect of centuries-old brain.

I take N-acetylcysteine and it helps with brain fog also! Plus it reduces stress and irritability.

And OCD symptoms, and many also benefit from better impulse control. Its more effective than SSRIs for some.

NAC is one of the only known treatments for trichotillomania, a under discussed but common condition that causes people to uncontrollably pull their hair out.

NAC has also been studied to reduce nicotine and alchohol cravings as well.

Are there any risks associated with NAC supplementation? For example, could long-term usage reduce aptosis and thereby increase risks of developing cancer?

Some mixed cancer associations in animal models

What is your dosage?

I take 1200mg a day, when Im taking it. I think standard/reccomended dosage is 600mg.

What's the reason to take it everyday? Does it truly make a difference everyday or could you get away with 1/3 days?

What are the effects on you?

Late response, but I have OCD and trichotillomania. I take a higher dose because the studies that measure effectiveness for these disorders used this dosage. I do not notice any effects outside of less compulsion to mess with my hair, which us huge (for me).

When can I snort this?

Prepare a line for me also please

Grab me a bag while your there.

I knew cocaine had to have an upside.

...in mice.

> Therefore, this study examined the effects of late middle-aged (18-month-old) male and female C57BL6/J mice receiving two intranasal doses of hiPSC-NSC-EVs on neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus at 20.5 months of age.

— https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev...

To be fair though, I think we owe the mice a positive research outcome.

“Congratulations, you get improved brain function while we continue to run other experiments on you!”

“There will be cake!”

You can now experience both physical pain and existential dread!

On the plus side, expect to see great works of literature authored by rodents.

That PR piece was brutal to navigate. Undoubtedly punched up by AI, it took far too long to even understand what the treatment entailed.

The link to the actual paper was appreciated. The context of whether findings will generalize outside of mouse models can depend a lot on specifics of the problem.

Mice get all the cool shit first

they get all the worst and most inane tortures too

I even seen a mouse on youtube with it's own tiny EV sports car driving about!

I read a book about a mouse with a motorcycle (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/232109.The_Mouse_and_...) and a different book about a mouse-like child with sailboat. (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/138959.Stuart_Little).

M. Night Shyamalan wrote a screenplay about the latter book, and it was made into a popular movie.

This one?

https://youtube.com/shorts/E74r-ybeQfE

Someone needs to put an octopus in a mini vehicle.

That's the one. I used a bit of creative freedom when describing a mouse with an EV sports car; it was a rat and an EV taxi.

Close enough

Then they get murdered...

Temu science at Tamu.

I have an AI generated bridge that I can sell you...

Ugh, I thought we were done with the Boomers....looks like they're gonna hang on.

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