“Brain Freeze” against forgetting – researchers are working on an injection against dementia

Physician Sven Wellmann calls the state in which he puts a patient “artificial hibernation”. The chief physician at the St. Hedwig Hospital Barmherzige Brüder in Regensburg cools down her brain for about 72 hours, he tells the „Spiegel“. His goal: protect nerve cells. He also calls the method “Brain Freeze”.

“Brain Freeze” is designed to protect the brain

Wellmann, for example, treats children whose brains suffered from a severe lack of oxygen at birth. “In the process, survival mechanisms are activated that help the body’s cells to better survive times of deficiency and to protect the brain from consequential damage,” he explains the cooling process.

However, the method is not entirely undisputed. Because: The top priority is to keep newborns warm after birth. At 37 degrees Celsius. For the “Brain Freeze”, however, the temperature has to be cooled down to 33.5 degrees. Too much cold can have dangerous consequences, such as slowing down the circulation or even bringing it to a standstill.

Researchers are therefore looking for another way to use the “Brain Freeze” method – without risking hypothermia. A team of scientists from Berlin now wants to have found a suitable active ingredient that should be able to stop neurodegenerative diseases. And that without the body cooling down too much.

Berlin researchers find active ingredient that puts the organism into hibernation

“We have found a way that we can bring about the positive effect of a lower body temperature without needing this lower body temperature,” quotes the “Spiegel” study author Florian Heyd. The active ingredient has already proven itself in experiments with mice.

In the laboratory tests, the team activated a specific gene in the body using a molecular-biological method: RBM3. This is usually active when the body temperature falls below a certain value. In mammals, for example, when they are hibernating, their body then shuts down in a kind of energy-saving mode. In addition, during this period their bodies produce what are known as cold shock proteins.

Together with scientists from the University of Cambridge, the Berlin researchers found that the animals were put into a protective state. Their brains were protected for several weeks afterwards, in this case from a condition in which harmful proteins spread throughout the brain, called prion disease. The disease got worse in the mice that were not chilled.

With gene manipulation against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease

The researchers finally found a way to use gene manipulation to produce cold shock proteins – even in the mice that had not previously been chilled. This was achieved using a so-called antisense oligonucleotide (ASO). And it is precisely this that the researchers are now hoping to use in humans with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in the future, using a syringe. How and whether this will work remains to be seen. The scientists still have to check whether the body can absorb this – or whether it even triggers an immune response. In the next step on piglets, whose organism is very similar to that of humans.

However, there is hope: Because, as the “Spiegel” reports, the ASO process has already led to an approved drug in the past. Children who have congenital muscle weakness are given it to strengthen their muscles. The researchers publish their results in the journal „EMBO Molecular Medicine“.