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Most of us probably know someone who developed Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia as they got older. But you probably also know someone who stayed sharp as a tack well into their 80s or 90s. Even if it’s a favorite TV actor, like Betty White. 

The fact that people age so differently makes you wonder: is there some switch that could be flipped in our biology to let us all live to 100 with our mental faculties intact.

Scientists now believe we can learn something from people whose minds stay sharp — whose brains stay youthful into old age that could lead to treatments to slow down aging for the rest of us.

That brings us to today’s guest.  Tony Wyss-Coray is the Director of the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

Wyss-Coray's lab is renowned for experiments showing that young blood can rejuvenate old brains, at least in laboratory animals. We talked with him about this work and the prospect of achieving more youthful brains into what we now consider old age.

Links
Wyss-Coray lab website
Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience

Further Reading

• Q&A: Can we rejuvenate aging brains? (Scope Blog, 2022)
• Gift from Phil and Penny Knight launches scientific endeavor to combat neurodegeneration (Stanford News, 2022)
• Young cerebrospinal fluid may hold keys to healthy brain aging (Wu Tsai Neuro, 2022)
• Blocking protein’s activity restores cognition in old mice (Stanford Medicine, 2019)
• Clinical trial finds blood-plasma infusions for Alzheimer’s safe, promising (Stanford Medicine, 2017)
• Infusion of young blood recharges brains of old mice, study finds (Stanford Medicine, 2014)
• Scientists discover blood factors that appear to cause aging in brains of mice
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