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That nasal spray "reverses brain aging" study, what's actually going on

Posted by elle_z in Cognitive & Nootropic - 7 points, 4 comments.

https://neurosciencenews.com/nasal-spray-reverse-brain-aging-30519

So there's a new neuroscience write-up about a nasal spray that apparently reversed brain aging and inflammation in animal models. The headline is the usual clicky stuff, but the actual study seems to be looking at an intranasal approach to target neuroinflammation directly, which honestly makes sense pharmacologically because the blood brain barrier is such a pain.

What bugs me is how these pre clinical findings always get framed like they're one phase 1 trial away from being in your bathroom cabinet. Animal data is animal data, and "reverses aging" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting in that headline. I'm curious what the actual compound was though, because if it's something like a TNF alpha inhibitor or a GLP 1 fragment delivered intranasally, that would actually be interesting mechanistically.

Anyone read past the abstract on this one? Want to know if it's a known pathway or something new-ish. 😅

Comments

  • recovery_restless: Yeah this one bugged me too, the headline was doing absolute backflips compared to what the paper actually showed from what i could see? The compound was a tiny peptide fragment aimed at something called CK2, which is involved in inflammatory signalling in microglia. The idea was that delivering it intranasally lets it sidestep the blood brain barrier a bit and calm down neuroinflammation in older mice. Interesting mechanism for sure, and the mice did better on memory tasks. But "reverses brain
  • elle_z: Oh nice, CK2, that's not one I'd come across in the peptide space before so thanks for digging that up. The microglia angle is what makes it click for me too, like if you can actually dial down that specific inflammatory loop instead of just blanketing inflammation broadly that's a real win mechanistically. Did they say anything about how long the effect lasted after they stopped dosing? That's usually the bit that either makes or breaks these for me because half the time the mice just revert on
  • humblejade: Not gonna lie the CK2 angle is what caught my eye too, i hadn't heard of anyone going after that target for neuroinflammation before. Do you know if the peptide fragment is something that's been discussed in other pre clinical work or is this the first time it's shown up?
  • elle_z: CK2 is exactly the part that made me go hmm too 😅 Honestly I haven't seen this specific fragment pop up anywhere else, which is part of why I'm a bit suspicious tbh, like is it novel or just buried in old papers nobody's citing. Did you happen to see which group published it? I'm trying to dig up the full paper but the writeup I read didn't name the peptide directly, just the target.

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