Can an Athlete's Blood Enhance Brainpower? (nytimes.com) 56
fahrbot-bot shares a report from The New York Times: What if something in the blood of an athlete could boost the brainpower of someone who doesn't or can't exercise? Could a protein that gets amplified when people exercise help stave off symptoms of Alzheimer's and other memory disorders? That's the tantalizing prospect raised by a new study in which researchers injected sedentary mice with blood from mice that ran for miles on exercise wheels, and found that the sedentary mice then did better on tests of learning and memory. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, also found that the type of brain inflammation involved in Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders was reduced in sedentary mice after they received their athletic counterparts' blood. Scientific results with mice don't necessarily translate to humans. Still, experts said the study supports a growing body of research.
The study involved mice that were about three months old -- roughly the equivalent of 25-to-30-year olds for humans. Some of the mice, nocturnal animals that love to run, could freely use exercise wheels in their cages and logged about four to six miles on the wheels each night. The wheels were locked for other mice that could scoot around their cages but could not get an extended cardio workout. [...] After 28 days, the researchers took a third group of mice that also did not exercise and injected them with blood plasma, the liquid that surrounds blood cells, from either the runner mice or the non-runner mice. Mice receiving runner blood did better on two tests of learning and memory than those receiving blood from the non-runner mice. In one test, which measures how long a mouse will freeze in fear when it is returned to a cage where it previously received an electric foot shock, mice with runner blood froze 25 percent longer, indicating they had better memory of the stressful event [...]. In the other test, mice with runner blood were twice as fast at finding a platform submerged in opaque water, he said. The team also found that the brains of mice with runner blood produced more of several types of brain cells, including those that generate new neurons in the hippocampus, a region involved in memory and spatial learning. A genetic analysis showed that about 1,950 genes had changed in response to the infusion of runner blood, becoming either more or less activated. Most of the 250 genes with the greatest activation changes were involved in inflammation and their changes suggested that brain inflammation was reduced.
The study involved mice that were about three months old -- roughly the equivalent of 25-to-30-year olds for humans. Some of the mice, nocturnal animals that love to run, could freely use exercise wheels in their cages and logged about four to six miles on the wheels each night. The wheels were locked for other mice that could scoot around their cages but could not get an extended cardio workout. [...] After 28 days, the researchers took a third group of mice that also did not exercise and injected them with blood plasma, the liquid that surrounds blood cells, from either the runner mice or the non-runner mice. Mice receiving runner blood did better on two tests of learning and memory than those receiving blood from the non-runner mice. In one test, which measures how long a mouse will freeze in fear when it is returned to a cage where it previously received an electric foot shock, mice with runner blood froze 25 percent longer, indicating they had better memory of the stressful event [...]. In the other test, mice with runner blood were twice as fast at finding a platform submerged in opaque water, he said. The team also found that the brains of mice with runner blood produced more of several types of brain cells, including those that generate new neurons in the hippocampus, a region involved in memory and spatial learning. A genetic analysis showed that about 1,950 genes had changed in response to the infusion of runner blood, becoming either more or less activated. Most of the 250 genes with the greatest activation changes were involved in inflammation and their changes suggested that brain inflammation was reduced.
Dracula (Score:2)
Ripped vampires (Score:3, Funny)
You want ripped vampires?! Because this is how you get ripped vampires!
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That was Elly Bathory. She did research on using young blood to reverse aging -- and she didn't just try it once or twice to declare it done, she was a firm believer in reproducible science. She also compared variants like using blood internally (via drinking) vs externally (bathing).
Vlad "Dracul" Tepes on the other hand just let the blood sink to the ground and go to waste.
When has this worked? (Score:2)
Here is the mantra. A single study is a guess, and often a bad one. Otherwise we would have tabletop fusion and all the free electricity we wanted.
If these things were real they would be heavily commercialized. What young fit person would not be willing to sell blood a few times a
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Athletes frequently are doing performance enhancing blood infusions. It's illegal, but they still do it. There is a minor industry to support it. Here's a list of some cases [wikipedia.org].
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You should RTFA and your own link.
It's not to do better on an IQ test or to improve memory. Blood doping for physical performance enhancement is well established. Ask Lance Armstrong. Also it isn't a transfusion of whole blood; it's a blood product for increasing red cell count.
Increasing the red blood cell count increases the body's ability to process oxygen and thus perform better in any endurance situation such as cycling in the Tour de France.
Thinking better has been parked if an athlete is blood do
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That is about Oxygen carrying capability. It is well known that helps for physical performance, but it does basically nothing for mental performance. Your brain still works well at oxy-sat levels where your organs already take damage. There are people with low oxygen saturation for medical reasons and they are not dumber for it.
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Farnsworth fusors aren't even complicated.
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Working fusors have been around since the 1970s.
So "decades" is correct.
restrain your enthusiasm, it will take time . (Score:2)
Not blood, it's plasma. And in the plasma are many things, one being of some interest for further study. This is very early work and you may not live to benefit from it. But yes, it's interesting and it opens new areas of exploration that should be fertile. Here's the SciAm link: https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
Re:restrain your enthusiasm, it will take time . (Score:4, Insightful)
it will take time
Or maybe not. If you take a walk around the block after dinner.
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There isn't... (Score:2)
Re: There isn't... (Score:2)
Billionaires (Score:3)
How soon before billionaires start hiring athletes to donate their blood? Reference: https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
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How soon before billionaires start hiring athletes to donate their blood?
Why not? We already pay elite athletes to get brain damage. This seems a lot less harmful than that.
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Adrenochrome factories (Score:4, Funny)
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Finally! I can end this evil addiction to babies! Give me some college athletes to exploit!
He thinks he's joking (cough fetal stem cells cough) ...
Inverse (Score:4, Funny)
Now we need to see if the reverse is true by giving my unhealthy blood to a professional athlete.
The obvious answer is no. (Score:1)
If it did enhance brain power, then there wouldn't need to be an army of tutors employed by all of the college athletic deparments.
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Well, it brings athletes up to the brain-power level of a smart mouse. Without that all those tutors could not do anything....
Peter Thiel (Score:3)
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Hahahaha, no. But Peter Thiel is apparently desperately afraid of death, like any good fuckup. Makes one wonder whether he considers his life so far to have been wasted. Money is not everything.
Not useful (Score:4, Funny)
Wake me up when they figure out which blood enables me to be out in daylight.
Blood Countness knew it centuries ago (Score:2)
Cruel (Score:2)
Why did the experiments have to be cruel?
Now we know that there is a possibility that we'll better remember someone might electrocute our feet or throw us in to a pool of opaque water, that's very helpful [sarc].
Why not just run the maze test with food in a couple of times?
Crazy Christian antivax perspective (Score:2)
There are crazy antivax Christians--in the US--who say that the Anti-Christ will a man whose blood will cure COVID-19 and a vaccine will be created from his blood. Then there are some other crazy antivax Christians who say that they (elite?) want people to die through COVID-19 vaccines so they can drink blood. It would be hilarious if those crazies took this research to their repertoire of evil.
Also, this sound like blood libel transferred to modernity, but instead of accusing Jews the target is the perce
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That bad, huh? No wonder they had to flee Europe.
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I'm beginning to think Europe should have executed them instead of spreading the craziness to an entirely new continent or two...
That idea definitely has merit. Would have avoided a lot of pain and suffering in the long run.
Try in revese? (Score:2)
How would an athlete perform with the blood of a counter strike gamer.
Re: Try in revese? (Score:2)
No. But it can separate slobs from their money. (Score:2)
At least that is the most likely situation. As others pointed out, this has been tried before and apparently with no real effects.
Gavin Belson's 'blood boy' (Score:2)
Oh yeah, duplication totally coming (Score:3)
I'll take bets that this study fails replication.
Move! (Score:3)
Forget transfusions for a moment.
As a senior, one of the pieces of advice I've seen quite often is to simply MOVE! Get out of that chair, get up and do something! More recently I've read that just walking for 15 minutes straight is good for you. No end of studies that say that being sedentary is bad.
Our brains first evolved to make our bodies move, developing the ability to think came later. The same advice that says to just move also indicates that simply moving is good for the brain, too. Keeping in mind the evolutionary origins, that makes sense.
Is getting "athletic transfusions" an attempt at a shortcut for just getting out of your chair?
A few years back we went to see "The Wrath of Khan" with Shatner on-stage after. He couldn't (or wouldn't) stay seated, he was always up and moving swinging his arms, gesticulating, and such. Pretty impressive for a guy closing in on 90. (at the time, he's past that now) I think part of the reason he was up so much was because he knows that if he sits too long he'll have a hard time getting up, and Heaven help us if Capt. Kirk grunts getting out of a chair on-stage.
Re: Move! (Score:2)
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This was the transfusion study, not the run around a bit study. I mentioned this to my wife, and she said, "Why not both?"
Re: Move! (Score:2)
Re: Move! (Score:2)
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My wife and I are pretty much walking maniacs, and we try to have a strong social life as well as keeping our marriage young and alive. So yeah, we're boomers, but we're not coming after your blood.
chillin' (Score:1)
HBO's Silicon Valley did it first (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Why not just let patients exercise? (Score:2)
Blood bags (Score:1)
Blood bags, who knew they worked.