TORONTO -- A drug commonly used to control Type 2 diabetes can help trigger stem cells to produce new brain cells, providing hope of a potential means to treat brain injuries and even neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, researchers say.
A study by scientists at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children found the drug metformin helps activate the mechanism that signals stem cells to generate neurons and other brain cells.
If you could take stem cells that normally reside in our brains and somehow use drugs to recruit them into becoming appropriate neural cell types, then you may be able to promote repair and recovery in at least some of the many brain disorders and injuries for which we currently have no treatment, said principal investigator Freda Miller.
This work is happening against a background of a lot of excitement in the stem cell field about the idea that since we now know that we have stem cells in many of our adult tissues, then perhaps if we could figure out how to pharmacologically tweak those stem cells, then perhaps we could help to promote tissue repair, added Miller, a senior scientist at SickKids.
The research, published online Thursday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, involved lab-dish experiments using both mouse and human brain stem cells, as well as learning and memory tests performed on live mice given the drug.
Researchers started by adding metformin to stem cells from the brains of mice, then repeated the experiment with human brain stem cells generated in the lab. In both cases, the stem cells gave rise to new brain cells.
They then tested the drug in lab mice and found that those given daily doses of metformin for two or three weeks had increased brain cell growth and outperformed rodents not given the drug in learning and memory tasks.
One standard test involves a water maze in which the mice must swim around until they locate a hidden platform.
And the remarkable thing is the mice that got the metformin, what they showed was increased flexibility in terms of the way they learned the location of things, said Miller, explaining that the drug-treated mice had a greater ability to learn and remember.
If you then, for example, moved the platform some place completely different, the metformin-treated animals were remarkably good at just saying, OK, things have changed and learning the new thing and (were) much better than the controls (untreated mice).
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Diabetes drug triggers neuron growth, potential to regenerate brain cells: study