IF YOU personal a automotive, you should have observed the engine getting much less environment friendly with time. The additional you drive it, the extra gas it takes to make the identical journey – till, finally, it turns into so underpowered that it wants a bodily push to climb even a mild hill.

Now, it’s rising that a lot the identical is true of the human mind. Microscopic buildings referred to as mitochondria, present in each mind cell, are fairly actually the engines of our ideas and emotions. As we age, they discover it tougher and tougher to provide ample vitality to energy our psychological actions. Worse, in the same method to an previous automotive leaving clouds of smoke in its wake, the cell’s powerhouses begin producing undesirable waste merchandise that slowly poison our brains. Which means malfunctioning mitochondria might underlie most of the most devastating mind situations, together with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and motor neuron illness.

Based on this “grand unified principle” of neurodegeneration, we might extend our mind’s wholesome functioning by recharging our neurons by way of restoration of their powerhouses. The concept is already inspiring some thrilling new therapies for age-related mind situations, with a number of drug candidates below investigation. Some researchers are even exploring the potential of transplanting wholesome mitochondria into broken, ageing brains to re-energise them. “In case you hold altering the components of a automotive, it could final without end,” says Claudio Soto, a neurologist on the College of Texas Well being Science Middle at Houston. “So what occurs if we attempt to do the…