Research Hit: A Nasal Spray That Reverses Brain Aging

A newly developed nasal spray has shown to be effective in reducing age-related inflammation in the brain

This sounds too good to be true!

The general rule in life is “If it sounds too good to be true, it is”. But maybe this is an exception. It certainly sounds promising.

What is this nasal spray and can I have some?

No, you can’t have any.

Let me explain what Leelavathi N. Madhu et al. of the Texas A&M University did first, and then whether this can apply to you and me.

They investigated using a nasal spray — as you may, or may not, know, the nose has a direct connection to the brain and can be used to transport molecules into the brain. But there are some massive limitations.

Namely that the brain is very restrictive as to what it allows into the brain — the so-called blood-brain barrier. Researchers are constantly looking to ways to get drugs or active components across this barrier and this is major challenge to a lot of drug development, for example.

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Obviously they managed this?

Yes, they did they used what are known as extracellular vesicles. Think of these as tiny bubbles that are recognised as “friendly”. And these had micro RNA in them that targets specific inflammation pathways. These pathways are considered master regulators of inflammation affecting gene expression.

These travel along the olfactory nerves directly into the brain sidestepping the blood-brain barrier.

Sounds impressive

Indeed, it is.

Just two doses of this in older individuals lowered inflammation within 7 days. And these effects lasted for months.

That’s already good news but gets even more impressive because it also improved cognitive function and at a cellular level, the treatment recharged neuronal mitochondria, considered the power plants of our cells. Basically rejuvenating these brain cells.

Oh wow — but is there a catch?

Of course!

These individuals I spoke about were mice — though mice give some good indication of how drugs function, many treatments fail to translate into humans.

It should also be noted that this change was only measured in one region of the brain, the hippocampus. Though this region is very important for memory, it is still only one region and whether it impacts other regions is open.

And that’s not to mention that maybe shutting down or down-regulating inflammation may also blunt the brain’s natural immune response!

Oh, but still promising, right?

Yes, still very promising, the team have already applied for a patent, but human trials will really show if this lives up to its promise. I’ll be watching closely!

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Originally published on my Substack

Madhu, L. N., M.Kodali, S.Rao, et al. Intranasal Human NSC-Derived EVs Therapy Can Restrain Inflammatory Microglial Transcriptome, and NLRP3 and cGAS-STING Signalling, in Aged Hippocampus. Journal of Extracellular Vesicles15, no. 2: e70232. https://doi.org/10.1002/jev2.70232