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Human Umbilical Cord Blood Helps Aging Mice Remember, Study Finds

Researchers found a protein in human umbilical cord plasma improved learning and memory in older mice, but there's no indication it would work in people.
Researchers found a protein in human umbilical cord blood plasma improved learning and memory in older mice, but there's no indication it would work in people.

Decades ago, scientists surgically attached pairs of rats to each other and noticed that old rats tended to live longer if they shared a bloodstream with young rats.

It was the beginning of a peculiar and ambitious scientific endeavor to understand how certain materials from young bodies, when transplanted into older ones, can sometimes improve or rejuvenate them.

From the beginning, the findings were exciting, complex and, sometimes, contradictory. For example, scientists have shown that young blood can restore cell activity in the muscles and livers of aging mice. They've also found that linking old mice to young ones helped reverse heart muscle thickening.

On the other hand, researchers those findings and concluded that, in mice that swapped blood without being connected surgically, the negative effects of being exposed to old

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