The Fountain of Youth – Morning Sign Out at UCI

Written by Rahul Koonantavida and Edited by Kevin Liu

Imagine if humans could harness the ever-elusive power to directly control the way that they age. As a proposition only ever realized in the craziest of science-fiction movies, the mysteries of aging continue to intrigue and baffle people all over the world. But recently, researchers from Harvard University made a huge breakthrough providing insight into the deeper mechanisms of how our bodies develop and deteriorate. After analyzing human, mice, and worm brains, the researchers concluded that excessive neural activity is directly linked to shorter lifespans [1]. In other words, the more active someone’s nervous system is as they age, the shorter their overall lifespan will be. Though seemingly non-correlated, the potential implications of this discovery are unprecedented. If we learn how to effectively regulate our neural activity, we move one step closer to being able to control our aging process– a development that may phenomenally change the way we live our lives.

At the core of this discovery lies a deeper understanding of the nervous system’s intricacies. Essentially, the nervous system is a collection of nerves and neurons that transmit information throughout the body [2]. It controls everything from the way we act to the way we think and even the way we breathe, twenty-four hours a day. While analyzing genes closely related to the nervous system’s function, researchers were able to identify a protein named REST, the star player of their discovery [1]. REST is essentially a master regulator of neuron-specific genes, especially in regards to neural growth and development [3]. When conducting their experiments, the researchers studied the brain tissue of people who had died in between the ages from 60 to 100 years old and found that those who died later had higher amounts of REST in their brains [1]. But how exactly does this tie into the mysteries of aging?

With the results of this experiment, researchers were able to support their hypothesis that increased neural activity leads to decreased longevity. Essentially, the more neural activity a tissue is involved in, the shorter its lifespan. The fact that the quantity of REST found in the tissue increased as the tissue aged illustrates how the presence of the REST protein represses neural excitation, thereby increasing one’s lifespan. Further experiments involving direct manipulation of REST quantities were conducted on worms and mice. The researchers came to the same conclusions as before — by inhibiting neural excitation through REST, extended lifespans could clearly be observed. Ultimately, the researchers sought to observe aging in tissues with varying amounts of REST, and concluded that the presence of a greater amount of REST leads to slower aging.

The most important part of this discovery is the implications it holds for the future of health and science. New therapies could be developed for disorders that involve neural excitation, such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and epilepsy [4]. Theoretically, by manipulating quantities of REST in the brain, the neurodegenerative nature of these diseases could be avoided and the brain could remain intact. However, considering the lack of human testing results available, these breakthroughs will likely not see fruition in the immediate future. Regardless, uncovering the importance of REST has opened a plethora of doors for future research, including everything from cures of ravaging diseases to the secrets of eternal youth.

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