Friday, August 18, 2006

Study Provides Insight Into How The Brain Loses Plasticity Of Youth

Source: Harvard Medical School
Posted: August 18, 2006

Summary:

A protein once thought to play a role only in the immune system could hold a clue to one of the great puzzles of neuroscience: how do the highly malleable and plastic brains of youth settle down into a relatively stable adult set of neuronal connections? Harvard Medical School researchers report in the August 17 issue of Science Express that adult mice lacking the immune system protein paired-immunoglobulin like receptor-B (PirB) had brains that retained the plasticity of much younger brains, suggesting that PirB inhibits such plasticity.

Commentary: Maybe this study will have implications for both aging research as well as regenerative medicine.

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