Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray
https://stories.tamu.edu/news/2026/04/14/scientists-reverse-brain-aging-with-a-nasal-spray/
cybermango · 4 days ago
14 comments
https://stories.tamu.edu/news/2026/04/14/scientists-reverse-brain-aging-with-a-nasal-spray/
cybermango · 4 days ago
14 comments
amingilani · 4 days ago
...in mice.
> Therefore, this study examined the effects of late middle-aged (18-month-old) male and female C57BL6/J mice receiving two intranasal doses of hiPSC-NSC-EVs on neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus at 20.5 months of age.
— https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev...
doginasuit · 4 days ago
To be fair though, I think we owe the mice a positive research outcome.
antonvs · 4 days ago
“Congratulations, you get improved brain function while we continue to run other experiments on you!”
earthnail · 4 days ago
“There will be cake!”
ghurtado · 3 days ago
You can now experience both physical pain and existential dread!
tryagainian · 3 days ago
On the plus side, expect to see great works of literature authored by rodents.
switchbak · 4 days ago
That PR piece was brutal to navigate. Undoubtedly punched up by AI, it took far too long to even understand what the treatment entailed.
SubiculumCode · 4 days ago
The link to the actual paper was appreciated. The context of whether findings will generalize outside of mouse models can depend a lot on specifics of the problem.
fuckinpuppers · 4 days ago
Mice get all the cool shit first
jjtheblunt · 4 days ago
they get all the worst and most inane tortures too
secretslol · 4 days ago
I even seen a mouse on youtube with it's own tiny EV sports car driving about!
dlcarrier · 3 days ago
I read a book about a mouse with a motorcycle (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/232109.The_Mouse_and_...) and a different book about a mouse-like child with sailboat. (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/138959.Stuart_Little).
M. Night Shyamalan wrote a screenplay about the latter book, and it was made into a popular movie.
tryagainian · 3 days ago
This one?
https://youtube.com/shorts/E74r-ybeQfE
Someone needs to put an octopus in a mini vehicle.
secretslol · 3 days ago
That's the one. I used a bit of creative freedom when describing a mouse with an EV sports car; it was a rat and an EV taxi.
tryagainian · 3 days ago
Close enough
hoppp · 3 days ago
Then they get murdered...
earth-tattoo · 4 days ago
That's exactly what I want: immortal mice!
ghurtado · 3 days ago
That's a surprisingly underused plot for a sci Fi horror film.
Considering the grand total of experiments we've ran on the little guys, I'm kinda surprised we haven't bred Mousezilla yet
bitwize · 3 days ago
Or Pinky & the Brain
topgrain2 · 3 days ago
The Secret of NIMH
bookofjoe · 3 days ago
See also: “Flowers for Algernon”
dlcarrier · 3 days ago
You joke, but rodents make great pets, because they are very social and have a range of personalities, but most only live a few years. I knew someone with a pet retired lab rat, and it lived much longer than the average fancy rat, but even then, it didn't even live half as long as the average cat or dog.
If we could breed or treat rodents to live longer, we could keep low-resource pets without as much loss.
magpi3 · 3 days ago
There is an excellent "This American Life" episode on rats. The first act is about a guy who keeps rats as pets. It's a sweet story.
SubiculumCode · 4 days ago
High impact journal for an interesting study that is admittedly largely out of my area of expertise. The limitation of it being done in animal models, is of course, noted, but also expected. The question I would ask is how well the underlying background research makes this outcome expected.
jskeicjwkxjwkd · 3 days ago
Damn, that’s one hell of a way to say “is this any good though?”. Too many words for such a simple question.
SubiculumCode · 3 days ago
Pretty much, lol. I started to say some other things but decided to say less.
Brian_K_White · 3 days ago
But "how well the underlying background research makes this outcome expected" does not mean "is this any good though".
It's also an actually interesting question.
It's one thing to find some things hard to follow, it's another to be proud of it.
block_dagger · 4 days ago
Flowers for Algernon’s Brain
wingmanjd · 3 days ago
This short story was scarier to me as a kid than anything else I read at the time.
bookofjoe · 3 days ago
The movie adaptation — “Charlie” — is heartbreakingly good.
jb1991 · 3 days ago
This one? Not called “Charlie” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210044/
bookofjoe · 3 days ago
That's a 2000 remake of the 1968 film.
Also, I misspelled the title: It's "Charly"
gavinray · 4 days ago
"Reverse brain aging", sure, in the same sense that taking Vitamin C reverses aging.
The nasal spray reduced markers of inflammation in hippocampal microglial cells.
A lot of things reduce inflammation. That is not "reversing ageing".
Of course, "reduces inflammation" doesn't headline very well...
mawadev · 3 days ago
The article is also heavily ai generated, I call bs on every single bit
dwa3592 · 3 days ago
c'mon you guys, chill. this is not a vaccine.
bigmattystyles · 3 days ago
I thought the url said temu at first.
RyanOD · 3 days ago
Hah! Me too.
rylando · 3 days ago
Kinda surprised A&M’s letting them use AI to write these things
dwa3592 · 3 days ago
>>The article is also heavily ai generated
can you please share your methodology for detecting ai please?
asdf88990 · 3 days ago
Vibes. It is in the vibes.
anonym29 · 3 days ago
Just a heads up, you're firmly in Poe's Law territory.
hyperhello · 3 days ago
Poe’s Law is the very essence of AI.
TonyAlicea10 · 3 days ago
“The most surprising part? It all happened within weeks and lasted for months.”
That’s an AI tell. It may not be entirely LLM-generated, the various direct quotations help a lot, but there are touches that definitely feel like an LLM had a hand here.
ShinyLeftPad · 3 days ago
That's not an "AI tell". If you read anything in recent decades, this is a turn of speech human writers wrote for ages and still write.
andregr · 3 days ago
"It's not just x, it's y." Absolutely clear tell, especially at this frequency. Examples from the article below:
"Over decades, it doesn’t just wear down, it also starts to run hot." "... the therapy didn’t just clear brain fog, it physically improved the brain’s ability to process and store information."
The quotes as well: "'... Not just living longer, but living smarter and healthier,' Shetty said." "'We aren’t just trying to understand the biological mechanisms, we are translating and developing our findings into real-world therapies that could make a difference,' Shetty said."
ShinyLeftPad · 3 days ago
What that is is a tell of bad writing
andregr · 3 days ago
It's a tell of not writing. It is extremely well-documented as a tell of AI writing.
damontal · 3 days ago
It’s a tell now. I see it I assume AI and disregard.
rfrey · 3 days ago
Anybody who still writes using their own mind has stopped using that pattern, along with others. "The thing nobody tells you:" is no longer used by decent writers.
ShinyLeftPad · 3 days ago
Yeah, like nobody uses em dashes anymore right?
rfrey · 3 days ago
I know lots of writers who have (reluctantly) stopped using em-dashes. Many replaced them with colons, and are now wondering what they will replace colons with.
ShinyLeftPad · 3 days ago
I know people who didn't:) Looks like we both know people.
tim333 · 3 days ago
I guess all AI writing patterns are copied from human writing. The tell is that you get patterns like that more frequently than with human writing and in odd places.
It's funny if you look at the paper https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev... how different it is from the article. They basically tried their spray on 18 month old mice and then dissected their brains at 20.5 months to check inflammation.
dwa3592 · 3 days ago
>>It's funny if you look at the paper https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev... how different it is from the article
i can sense the lack of capacity for reasoning in your comment. it's okay. the paper and the article are written by two very different people. the article is written by someone in the communications team, who communicate "what's going on at the university" to the outside world . the paper is written by the actual scientists.
tim333 · 3 days ago
>tried their spray on 18 month old mice and then dissected their brains at 20.5 months
is not the same facts as
>It all happened within weeks and lasted for months
I suspect LLM hallucination rather than different people. Or maybe I missed the bit where they tested it lasting for months?
ShinyLeftPad · 3 days ago
Interesting, I wish I read the paper but somehow didn't encounter links. This takes it from bad writing to terrible journalism to be honest. Can't defend it...
dwa3592 · 3 days ago
>>That’s an AI tell
do you have any other explanation other than tells? - maybe your tarot cards might have better explanation.
scrubs · 3 days ago
AI generated? Not demonstrated.
Whining by humans claiming AI? Predictable. Probable. Indeed LLM "complete the sentence" predictable.
fwip · 3 days ago
Sure, a human could be deliberately trying to sound like AI writing, or perhaps they've spent so much time reading it that they think it's normal.
Aurornis · 3 days ago
This is the current big grift in anti-aging science:
1 - Find a marker correlated with aging across a large sample
2 - Find a medication or supplement that also alters that marker
3 - Do some before and after measurements of the marker with the supplement or medication, and claim that you have reversed aging. Rely on the fact that enough readers won’t look closely enough to wonder if the marker is a true independent variable that represents aging.
roncesvalles · 3 days ago
There is a pop theory that aging is just scurvy in slow motion and Vitamin C hypersupplementation actually goes a long way in staving it off.
mberlove · 2 days ago
Asking this honestly...if certain kinds of inflammation tend to accelerate aging, and those inflammations can be controlled or decreased, does that, in effect, at least slow (if not actually reverse) aging? Granted that the headline is sensationalized, it seems like there may still be a point being made that is valid.
general_reveal · 4 days ago
When can I snort this?
hoppp · 3 days ago
Prepare a line for me also please
tryagainian · 3 days ago
Grab me a bag while your there.
grg0 · 3 days ago
I knew cocaine had to have an upside.
hoppp · 3 days ago
I take N-acetylcysteine and it helps with brain fog also! Plus it reduces stress and irritability.
ai_fry_ur_brain · 3 days ago
And OCD symptoms, and many also benefit from better impulse control. Its more effective than SSRIs for some.
NAC is one of the only known treatments for trichotillomania, a under discussed but common condition that causes people to uncontrollably pull their hair out.
NAC has also been studied to reduce nicotine and alchohol cravings as well.
tmoertel · 3 days ago
Are there any risks associated with NAC supplementation? For example, could long-term usage reduce aptosis and thereby increase risks of developing cancer?
mbil · 3 days ago
Some mixed cancer associations in animal models
aurareturn · 3 days ago
What is your dosage?
ai_fry_ur_brain · 3 days ago
I take 1200mg a day, when Im taking it. I think standard/reccomended dosage is 600mg.
aurareturn · 3 days ago
What's the reason to take it everyday? Does it truly make a difference everyday or could you get away with 1/3 days?
What are the effects on you?
ai_fry_ur_brain · 2 days ago
Late response, but I have OCD and trichotillomania. I take a higher dose because the studies that measure effectiveness for these disorders used this dosage. I do not notice any effects outside of less compulsion to mess with my hair, which us huge (for me).
keepamovin · 3 days ago
Ugh, I thought we were done with the Boomers....looks like they're gonna hang on.
timmg · 3 days ago
How soon until biohackers try this on themselves?
lioeters · 3 days ago
The failure scenarios are fun to imagine, like uncontrollable brain growth or waking nightmares as weird side effect of centuries-old brain.
catlifeonmars · 3 days ago
TFA reeks of over-sensationalizing. Here is a summary sans hyperbole:
Intranasal Human NSC-Derived EVs Therapy Can Restrain Inflammatory Microglial Transcriptome, and NLRP3 and cGAS-STING Signalling, in Aged Hippocampus[1].
Abstract:
> Neuroinflammaging, a moderate, chronic, and sterile inflammation in the hippocampus, contributes to age-related cognitive decline. Neuroinflammaging comprises the activation of the nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat family, and pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes, and the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway that triggers type 1 interferon (IFN-1) signalling. Studies have shown that extracellular vesicles from human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural stem cells (hiPSC-NSC-EVs) contain therapeutic miRNAs that can alleviate neuroinflammation. Therefore, this study examined the effects of late middle-aged (18-month-old) male and female C57BL6/J mice receiving two intranasal doses of hiPSC-NSC-EVs on neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus at 20.5 months of age. Compared with animals receiving vehicle treatment, the hippocampus of animals receiving hiPSC-NSC-EVs exhibited reductions in astrocyte hypertrophy, microglial clusters, and oxidative stress, along with elevated expression of antioxidant proteins and genes that maintain mitochondrial respiratory chain integrity. Moreover, hiPSC-NSC-EVs therapy decreased the levels of various proteins involved in the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, p38/mitogen-activated protein kinase, cGAS-STING-IFN-1, and Janus kinase and signal transducer and activator of transcription signalling pathways. Furthermore, in vitro assays using genetically engineered RAW cells and hiPSC-NSC-EVs, with or without targeted depletion of specific miRNAs, demonstrated that miRNA-30e-3p and miRNA-181a-5p, both present in hiPSC-NSC-EVs, can significantly inhibit the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and the STING pathway, respectively. Additionally, single-cell RNA sequencing conducted 7 days post-treatment revealed that hiPSC-NSC-EVs induce widespread transcriptomic changes in microglia, including increased expression of numerous genes that enhance oxidative phosphorylation and reduced expression of abundant genes that drive multiple proinflammatory signalling pathways. These changes mediated by hiPSC-NSC-EVs were also associated with improved cognitive and memory function. Thus, intranasal hiPSC-NSC-EVs therapy in late middle age can effectively diminish proinflammatory microglial transcriptome and signalling cascades that drive neuroinflammaging in the hippocampus, contributing to better brain function in old age.
[1]: https://isevjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jev...
Joel_Mckay · 3 days ago
Many Brain-aging study sample pools are from young folks that died in accidents, aged homeless alcoholics, and individuals that were in declining health.
Most cultures find it taboo to donate their beloved family members bodies for scientific dissection. Thus, people get ingrained "[bigotry] with extra steps" similar to phrenology proponents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox
"Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance" =3
ChrisArchitect · 3 days ago
Story from April;
Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48288478
Alien1Being · 3 days ago
Temu science at Tamu.
I have an AI generated bridge that I can sell you...