How the Brain Protects Itself from Deterioration

Experts know that the human brain is more prone to experiencing deterioration as people progress in age, but new studies are beginning to reveal mechanisms that the body uses to repair damage and defective structures.

These investigations could pave the way for new therapies and treatments that could eventually lead to delaying the effects of aging by years, if not decades. The work is also relevant because it promises to reduce the incidence of various forms of dementia in the aging populations.

Conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig disease, and Lewi body dementia are beginning to manifest themselves more and more often in the general population, incurring a massive cost in terms of money, resources, and dedication from family members of sick individuals.

Some of the factors that accelerate the aging of the brain, and provide the conditions necessary for the development of this condition include stress, the accumulation of toxic waste products and inflammation processes.

But certain natural mechanisms in the human brain can mitigate some of the damage these factors produce, contributing to putting defective structures in the cortex back on track. Interestingly, one of these mechanisms is turned on by the active substance in marijuana.

In a recent study conducted on mice, experts found that the cannabinoid-1 receptor (CB1) has a hidden function, protecting the brain against degeneration. The protein can bind to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active agent in marijuana.

“If we switch off the receptor using gene technology, mouse brains age much faster,” explains the principal author of the new study, PhD student Onder Albayram. He is based in Germany, at the University of Bonn Institute of Molecular Psychiatry (IMP).

“This means that the CB1 signal system has a protective effect for nerve cells,” he goes on to say. The PhD student explains that mice who had the gene expressing CB1 knocked out fared a lot worse than other mice when it come to performing

“The knock-out mice showed clearly diminished learning and memory capacity,” Albayram explains. He adds that those mice lose brain cells from the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is involved on forming and storing long-term memories, PsychCentral reports.

“The endocannabinoid system may also present a protective mechanism in the aging of the human brain,” the PhD student concludes.

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