Rapamycin

I have reported previously on research suggesting that rapamycin, a bacterial product first isolated from soil on Easter Island and used to help transplant patients prevent organ rejection, might improve learning and memory. Following on from this research, a new mouse study has extended these findings by adding rapamycin to the diet of healthy mice throughout their life span. Excitingly, it found that cognition was improved in young mice, and abolished normal cognitive decline in older mice.

Rapamycin, a drug that keeps the immune system from attacking transplanted organs, was recently found to extend the life span of aged research mice. Now a study involving genetically engineered mice has found that 10 weeks of taking the drug improved learning and memory and reduced Alzheimer's-like damage in the brain.

A few months ago, I reported on an exciting finding that rapamycin, a drug currently used in transplant patients, improved memory in Alzheimer's mice. Now a different strain of mice (ones engineered to have defects in the genes that make amyloid precursor protein) has also shown improvements in learning and memory, correlated with less damage in brain tissue, after rapamycin treatment lowered levels of amyloid-beta-42. The mice given the drug performed at levels comparable with normal mice.