Boffins work out how to reverse ‘brain ageing’ after growing mouse brain in dish

Top Russian boffins have managed to grow the cells from a mouse's brain in a dish and are now claiming they can “reverse brain ageing” as a result.

The claims comes from a team at the Department of Neurotechnology at the Institute of Biology and Biomedicine at Lobachevsky University in Nizhny Novgorod.

According the Kremlin-backed media outlet Moskovskij Komsomolets, the scientics have worked out how the nerve cells in the mouse brain cells work during ageing, and are actually studying “entire networks” of nerve cells for the first time.

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Scientist Elena Mitroshina explained that it was all down to something called astrocytes, which are cells that make up the human nervous system in the brain.

She said: “This was a unique model work of its kind, not even on animals, but on their cell culture.

“We grew mouse astrocytes in a laboratory petri dish and looked at how they communicated with each other via calcium waves when they were young and when they aged.

“Naturally, the experiment lasted a very long time – we cultivated, grew cells and waited for them to begin to show signs of ageing.”

The average age for a mouse is around 18 months and the boffins sped up the ageing process using calcium imaging.

They ended up with a “brain” that was quite old as a result and noticed the astrocytes were transmitting fewer signals to each other over time.

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She continued: “We assume that in addition to a decrease in signal transmission between astrocytes, their interaction with neurons also decreases, and in general, all this leads to disruptions in brain function.

“Therefore, the next stage of our work will be to find a mechanism for maintaining this 'communication' so that astrocytes continue to work like young ones with age.

“We want to use optogenetics methods to rejuvenate the brain’s signalling system, which is a modern genetic engineering technology where a special light-sensitive protein is created, integrated into the cell membrane and creates a channel for the passage of calcium ions into the cell.”

She went on to claim that if her most “optimistic assumptions” are confirmed, the process can be used in humans, and will not need surgery.

No estimation on when this could be rolled out into humans has been given.

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