X-Message-Number: 27 From: Kevin Q. Brown Subject: aging reversal, memory, and Longevity Date: 29 Sep 1988 Here are three recent news items: (1) a plan to continue research to REVERSE aging, (2) a summary of several of Thomas Donaldson's articles on memory, and (3) the (new) Longevity magazine. - Kevin Q. Brown ...{att|clyde|cuae2}!ho4cad!kqb A Plan to REVERSE Human Aging ----------------------------- The Sept. 1988 issue of Life Extension Report (the monthly publication of the Life Extension Foundation, 2835 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, FL 33020) included the article "The Foundation's Plan to REVERSE Human Aging" by Saul Kent. The plan is to continue the work of W. Donner Denckla, "[who] showed that rats could be rejuvenated into a state of youthful vigor for long periods of time by surgical removal of the pituitary (the master gland of the endocrine system) and replacement of several of the hormones normally produced by the pituitary" and the goal of this project is to: "isolate the pituitary hormone (or other factor) that accelerated aging in Denckla's experiments and (if we succeed) to develop a safe and effective therapy to inhibit its action in humans." Denckla's results are particularly interesting because they accomplished long- term REVERSAL of aging in ADULT mammals. Food restriction, which works best only if begun before sexual maturation, only postpones aging rather than reversing it. Vitamins and anti-oxidants only "square" the mortality curve, rather than extending lifespan. Other life extension approaches, such as immune system stimulants and brain cell transplants are being pursued by other organizations, but nobody is currently following up on Denckla's work. What is not clear in this article is why nobody else has been following up on Denckla's work. Denckla quit several years ago "for personal reasons", but now Dr. Robert Parker, who worked with Denckla on his experiments, is ready to start it up again. Does anyone have any more news on why Denckla quit and why there has not been greater interest in continuing his work? Donaldson on Memory ------------------- The August 1988 issue of Cryonics has a thirty page set of articles on memory by Thomas Donaldson. One thing that quickly becomes clear when reading these articles is that the mechanisms of memory are quite complex and that we are just beginning to understand them. Most of Donaldson's articles point toward some interesting clues, but no definite, cut-and-dried statement of how memory does or does not work. Nevertheless, my impression is that we have a plausible, though not definitely correct, broad outline of how memory is stored. Memory comes in several varieties. One way to classify the types of memory is by how long they last. Short term memory lasts only a few minutes whereas long term memory lasts for years. Also, at least one intermediate term form of memory exists, which lasts for several hours or a day. Short term sensitization is such an intermediate term memory; impulses at a synapse result in phosphorylation of a protein at that synapse, which ultimately results in making it much easier for the synapse to receive an impulse. (See cryonics mailing list message #2 for more details.) Long Term Potentiation (LTP), which results from repeated electrical stimulation of a synapse, also persists for hours and seems quite similar (if not the same) chemically as short term sensitization. Intermediate term memory does not require production of new protein because phosphorylation acts to change an existing protein by adding phosphate. Long term memory, however, does require new protein and Donaldson suggests that this may involve changes in the expression of genes in the DNA. The c-fos gene, which is known to control other genes, may be involved in memory. (Some researchers have pointed out that the cell differentiation that occurs during development of an organism is a type of long-term process (memory) that involves gene expression. They suggest that long term memory may be best viewed as yet another type of development.) Another way to classify types of memory is by the way in which they are used. Donaldson mentions the distinction between "declarative" and "procedural" memory. The chemistry involved in knowing facts (such as a telephone number) apparently differs from the chemistry of knowing how to perform a task (such as dialing the phone number). People with Alzheimer's disease can learn to do a new task (procedural memory) but cannot remember new facts (such as how or when they learned to do the new task). Longevity Magazine ------------------ The publishers of Penthouse and OMNI have just unleashed onto the newsstands the monthly magazine Longevity, after two years of publishing it as a newsletter. While I certainly do not claim that Longevity is an authoritative source of life extension information, just as I would not claim that OMNI is an authoritative source of science information, seeing Longevity on the newsstands is a good sign. It is a good sign because it means that some people who are good at making money publishing magazines have apparently concluded that a sufficiently large market for life extension exists to risk launching a large circulation life extension magazine. What was just a few years ago generally considered "fringe" thinking is now mainstream. In this first (magazine) issue, Dr. Robert Butler, founding director of the National Institute on Aging, says that: "We must focus [research] on the basic molecular biology of aging that predisposes us to diseases as we grow older." He is proposing research on aging itself, not just diseases of aging, which only a few years ago was generally considered a crackpot idea. Cryonics, however, is still clearly not mainstream, although it did get mentioned in the "Outer Limits" section in a short article on Saul Kent and the Dora Kent case in Riverside, CA. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27