In a new study, a team of scientists from the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital provides scientific evidence showing that exposure to new activities may delay onset of dementia from Alzheimer’s disease.
Previous studies have shown that keeping the mind active, exercising, and social interactions may help delay the onset of dementia in Alzheimer’s patients.
Now, a new study led by Dennis Selkoe, co-director of the Center for Neurologic Diseases in the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), provides specific, pre-clinical scientific evidence supporting the concept that prolonged and intensive stimulation by an enriched environment — especially regular exposure to new activities — may have beneficial effects in delaying one of the key negative factors in Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers at the Harvard-affiliated BWH used a wild-type mouse model when evaluating how the environment might affect Alzheimer’s. Unlike other pre-clinical models used in Alzheimer’s disease research, wild-type mice tend to more closely mimic the scenario of average humans developing the disease under normal environmental conditions, rather than being strongly genetically pre-disposed to the disease.
Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor of Neurology at BWH Shaomin Li was the first author on the study, which is published online in the journal Neuron.
Alzheimer’s disease occurs when amyloid beta protein accumulates and forms “senile plaques” in the brain. This protein accumulation can block nerve cells in the brain from properly communicating with one another. This may gradually lead to an erosion of a person’s mental processes, such as memory, attention, and the ability to learn, understand, and process information.
Selkoe and his team found that prolonged exposure to an enriched environment activated certain adrenalin-related brain receptors. The activity triggered a signaling pathway that prevented the amyloid beta protein from weakening the communication between nerve cells in the brain’s “memory center,” the hippocampus. The hippocampus plays an important role in both short- and long-term memory.
The ability of an enriched, novel environment to prevent amyloid beta protein from affecting the signaling strength and communication between nerve cells was seen in both young and middle-aged wild-type mice.
“This part of our work suggests that prolonged exposure to a richer, more novel environment beginning even in middle age might help protect the hippocampus from the bad effects of amyloid beta, which builds up to toxic levels in 100 percent of Alzheimer patients,” said Selkoe, Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurologic Diseases in the Department of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, the study’s senior author.
Moreover, the scientists found that exposing the brain to novel activities in particular provided greater protection against Alzheimer’s disease than did just aerobic exercise. According to the researchers, this observation may be due to stimulation that occurred not only physically, but also mentally, when the mice moved quickly from one novel object to another.
“This work helps provide a molecular mechanism for why a richer environment can help lessen the memory-eroding effects of the build-up of amyloid beta protein with age,” said Selkoe. “They point to basic scientific reasons for the apparent lessening of [Alzheimer’s disease] risk in people with cognitively richer and more complex experiences during life.”
Reference: “Environmental Novelty Activates β2-Adrenergic Signaling to Prevent the Impairment of Hippocampal LTP by Aβ Oligomers” by Shaomin Li, Ming Jin, Dainan Zhang, Ting Yang, Thomas Koeglsperger, Hongjun Fu and Dennis J. Selkoe, 6 March 2013, Neuron.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.12.040
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, the Massachusetts General Hospital Neurology Clinical Trials Units, and the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center.
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3 Comments
Sir Isaac Newton who lived to the ripe old age of 88 had not developed Alzheimer’s disease because he was writing his science findings till the last stage of his life. He kept his brain young, thinking on new theories and ideas rather than retiring to a blank mind like any other old people does thinking that their age is over for new reading and new ideas. Same is the case of Einstein. We know that Einstein’s brain was made with large number of foldings to store fresh neural connections. His ever growing knowledge kept his brain cells new and young and it prevented Ameloid-B from clumping and forming a plaque in the brain cells. Dementia is delayed. After all in biology the dictum is ” USE IT OR LOSE IT “. Thank You.
Thank you for this information. I am told that card games and crosswords are helpful also.
I also heard that crosswords would help. Didn’t knew about card games, so thank you 🙂