Hacking Brain to Fight Alzheimer’s
Promising research suggests Microglia -- tiny brain cells
that were previously viewed as "Humble Trashmen" -- may be manipulated to cure a host of
health conditions.
Getty Images
Now a groundbreaking theory of brain illness — presented in a thrilling new book by science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa called “The Angel and the Assassin” — offers big answers by pointing to the tiny packages called microglia.
Microglia makes up 10 percent of the cells that populate the inside of our skulls.
In 2001, Nakazawa first developed an autoimmune disorder called Guillain-Barre, which paralyzed her, keeping her bedridden on and off for the next five years. She also suffered from cognitive issues — suddenly she couldn’t remember the name of the watermelon she was cutting or how to do her child’s first-grade math — that were dismissed as situational depression.
“My brain did not feel like my own,” she wrote.
Once she recovered, she started to examine other cases where cognitive issues, depression and brain fog developed during or after a physical illness. She found that people with everything from multiple sclerosis to bacterial infections were more likely to develop depression, bipolar disorder and memory issues.
Could sickness in the body create behavioral changes in the brain?
New research on microglia cells has started to revolutionize our understanding of the brain. Microglia.
They are relatives of white blood cells and lymph cells in the immune system, and were previously viewed as “humble trashmen” of the brain and believed to have only one role: to get rid of dead neurons.
But in 2012 a series of research papers showed that microglia played a far more complex role than ever imagined. They not only “held enormous power to protect, repair and repopulate the brain’s billions of neurons, but also cripple and destroy, leaving wildfire-like devastation in their wake.”
When microglia are overactivated for one reason or another (potential instigators can be illness, stress, a head injury) they start to target and attack healthy neurons, eating away “at the synapses that give us mental stamina, hope, joy, and clarity of mind.”
It’s a runaway problem — sometimes after microglia start, they can’t stop and continue destroying synapses for years after the precipitating event.
While healthy microglia can help us thrive, they can also make us miserable — hence the nickname for them: “the angel and the assassin.”
Researchers have confirmed that a host of conditions — from autism to Alzheimer’s disease — lead to hyperactive microglia, and they are now finding ways to “calm” these cells.
Brain Hacking
One method is called “brain hacking” — using transcranial magnetic stimulation to “reboot” the brain and its army of microglia cells. This could calm the hyperactive microglia cells in Alzheimer's disease.
Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback, relies on pleasing sounds and imagery to “retrain” the brain. (Nakazawa interviewed a few patients who’ve undergone such training with positive results, making for a compelling, though purely anecdotal, case.). This could also calm the hyperactive microglia cells in Alzheimer's disease.
“Fast-Mimicking” diets
When people reduce their calories to near fasting levels (called “fast-mimicking” diets) it seems to also help quiet the immune system and the brain. This is also known to calm the hyperactive microglia cells in Alzheimer's disease.
Gamma-ray light flicker therapy
Gamma-ray light flicker therapy (GRLFT) helps train the brain to “heal itself” and is currently heading into clinical trials as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Nakazawa feels that communication between the brain and body would be key to recovery in diseases such as Alzheimer's and Autoimmune Disease.
“I did do a lot of dietary changes,” she said in an interview, “worked on healing and rebooting my microbiome through diet . . . and now we know that immune cells in our gut talk to microglia in the brain. We didn’t know that then, I just knew I felt better.”
The hope is that others latch onto this new knowledge about microglia and the ability to retrain the brain to ultimately live with less issues such as dementia, depression etc.
These new microglia-harnessing technologies bring “extraordinary promise and hope” to one day even “treat intractable depression or hard to cure dementia in the millions of people for whom medication alone is not enough to relieve their suffering,” .
“This is a brave new era of hope.”
Source and other interesting info:
https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/how-brain-hacking-could-help-fight-alzheimers-depression-and-more/
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