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Mauricio Lima / AFP - Getty Images file
An actual human brain is displayed inside a glass box as part of an interactive exhbition titled "Brain: A World Inside Your Head."
By Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Brain cells can live at least twice as long as the organisms in which they reside, according to new research.
The study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that mouse neurons, or brain cells, implanted into rats can survive with the rats into old age, twice as long as the life span of the original mice.
The findings are good news for life extension enthusiasts.
"We are slowly but continuously prolonging the life of humans," said study co-author Dr. Lorenzo Magrassi, a neurosurgeon at the University of Pavia in Italy.
So if the human life span could be stretched to 160 years, "then you are not going to lose your neurons, because your neurons do not have a fixed lifetime."
Long-lived cells
While most of the cells in the human body are being constantly replaced, humans are born with almost all the neurons they will ever have. [10 Odd Facts About the Brain]
Magrassi and his colleagues wanted to know whether neurons could outlive the organisms in which they live (barring degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's).
To do so, the researchers took neurons from mice and implanted them into the brains of about 60 rat fetuses.
The team then let the rats live their entire lives, euthanizing them when they were moribund and unlikely to survive for more than two days, and then inspected their brains. The life span of the mice was only about 18 months, while the rats typically lived twice as long.
The rats were found to be completely normal (though not any smarter), without any signs of neurological problems at the end of their lives.
And the neurons that had been transplanted from mice were still alive when the rats died. That means it's possible the cells could have survived even longer if they were transplanted into a longer-lived species.
Life extension
The findings suggest that our brain cells won't fail before our bodies do.
"Think what a terrible thing it could be if you survive your own brain," Magrassi told LiveScience.
While the findings were done in rats, not humans, they could also have implications for neuronal transplants that could be used for degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease, Magrassi said.
But just because brain cells may be able to live indefinitely doesn't mean humans could live forever.
Aging is dependent on more than the life span of all the individual parts in the body, and scientists still don't understand exactly what causes people to age, Magrassi said.
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Wonderful: Find a way to extend lifespans to 160 years. That means you're going to have to work longer because, god forbid, you might need help from the government. Then there are the additional mouths to feed from the increased number of elderly, in addition to the constantly expanding population all over the world, more pressure for food and potable water. Then there's no guarantee that living to 160 would be a healthy lifespan: many parts of the body would still wear out, requiring longer spans of time where the person requires additional/increasing amounts of meds (are the insurance companies going to pay for this? What if you can't find insurance after age 110?) If people continue to get frail, who are they going to live with, their increasingly frail, longer living children? Are those children going to have to work even longer to take care of their 140 , 150 and 160 y/o parents? It might be worth knowing that in a normal lifespan there might be ways to treat dementia or Alzheimers but longer life spans from miracle medical technology need to be thought out carefully. (Oh well, it will probably be only the mega-rich overlords that will be able to afford these treatments and those required to live longer anyway).
Nobody ever said science always does things for the better.
Please do not forget that human beings are the most valuable resource on the planet.
Everything has to expend effort to live, there is nothing on earth that can just sit back and be pampered all its life (as a species, not an individual). If being alive for 80 more years means I have to work those 80 years, toiling at my job, paying taxes, having adventures on the weekend, reading fun books for leisure, enjoying the company of my partner, playing with my great-grandchildren, breathing, taking a hot shower, drinking water, stretching when I wake up and eating delicious pizza - then by gosh I will gladly delay my death and take up this horrible burden of living for 80 more years.
Of course this is tempered with how useful I can be, to others and myself. I don't want to be a comatose vegetable for 80 years, and that simply would not be feasible for a society. But decently active, productive, and able to enjoy life. Why not?
It will likely be optional, so if you don't like the idea then feel free to kick-off when you "naturally" should of (not that living outwith the fear of being eaten by a saber tooth tiger, dying of rickets or freezing to death is natural - remember human beings have been spending the past few thousand years finding ways to extend life to the point we currently have it).
As for the mega-rich overlords being the only ones to get it, well that degree of class division what mass riots and revolutions are for - take a look at the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and thank the heavens that at least for now, we still have the 2nd Amendment.
yeah you can become the battery to sustain the mega rich if you want to, not me.
Why does it say "food for thought?" Although that brain does have a lot of nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter...
Both comments I think are great. Does seem like this could be the doorway opening to implanting a human brain into a robotic body. It's already been done in sorts with rat brain cells controlling a small battery powered chassis.
I think I'll opt for a body composed of T30 rolled stainless steel for a skeleton, a flexible titanium hybrid skin, and diamond tipped fingers for shredding cinder blocks or whatever :)
well we are already stretching our resources thin. by extending the life span you had better have an effective way to control reproduction or else we would have a problem in no time at all.
We can have a second life as a Brain in a jar.