I expect our researchers to start up a clinical trial shortly on this. Although the water-maze test for stroke humans might be deadly.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00280/abstract
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1J. Crayton Pruitt Family Dept of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, United States
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2Neuroscience Deparment and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, United States
We tested whether indomethacin or rosiglitazone treatment could
rejuvenate spatial ability and hippocampal neurogenesis in aging rats.
Young (4 mo; n = 30), middle-aged (12 mo; n = 31) and aged (18 mo; n =
31) male Fischer 344 rats were trained and then tested in a rapid
acquisition water maze task and then fed vehicle (500µl strawberry
milk), indomethacin (2.0mg/ml) or rosiglitazone (8.0mg/ml) twice daily
for the remainder of the experiment. A week after drug treatment
commenced, the rats were given 3 daily BrdU (50mg/kg) injections to test
whether age-related declines in neurogenesis were reversed. One week
after the final BrdU injection (~2.5 weeks after the 1st water maze
session), the rats were trained to a find novel hidden water maze
platform location, tested on 15min and 24h probe trials and then killed
24h later. During the first water maze session, young rats outperformed
aged rats but all rats learned information about the hidden platform
location. Middle-aged and aged rats exhibited better memory probe trial
performances than young rats in the 2nd water maze session and
indomethacin improved memory probe trial performances on the 2nd versus
1st water maze session in middle-aged rats. Middle-aged rats with more
new neurons had fewer phagocytic microglia and exhibited better hidden
platform training trial performances on the 2nd water maze session.
Regardless of age, indomethacin increased new hippocampal neuron numbers
and both rosiglitazone and indomethacin increased subependymal
neuroblasts/neuron densities. Taken together, our results suggest the
feasibility of studying the effects of longer-term immunomodulation on
age-related declines in cognition and neurogenesis.