Transgenuity Pathway Analysis

Villeda emphasizes on the counteractive measures of cognitive impairment effected by aging. Aging contributes to the cognitive deterioration by altering the structure and functionality of the brain. In order to resist such devastating effects, Vidella proposes to introduce young blood to aged organisms by utilizing heterochronic parabiosis. The heterochronic parabiosis can be utilized to neutralize and reverse pre-existing conditions of aged-brain at the molecular, structural, functional and cognitive levels.
Since the proper functionality of the cognitive process is dependent on the hippocampus, it is the primary region that is negatively affected by age. Villedas’ group initially performed a genomic microarray analysis of the hippocampus in isochronic and heterochronic parabionts. Each particular parabionts exhibited a unique synaptic plasticity regulation. The Creb signaling pathway was also examined due to its crucial in the synaptic plasticity regulation; it was analyzed using the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA). The data gathered from microarray and IPA
In DG, Golgi analysis revealed that the dendritic spine number in neuron cells were higher in heterochronic parabionts; there were no variations within the dendritic complexity between the groups. These data specifies that spine density in aged DG is excelled by young blood. Functional changes, in a fourth set of parabionts, were also observed through extracellular electrophysiological recordings in hippocampal slices. The long-term potentiation (LTP) of the heterochronic parabionts maintained its recordings above baseline. Since an increase in LTP results in the strengthening of the synaptic plasticity, the data demonstrates that plasticity in aged mice is improved through young blood. The enhancement of the structural and functional integrity provides an approach to counter cognitive