The following statement may seem illogical, but researchers have found that nerve cell activity in the brain causes DNA damage. More about the intriguing study that raises more questions than answers in the article in front of you
By: Zvi Atzmon, Galileo
A scientific article that seems to be inconsistent with accepted scientific concepts can be the tip of a thread leading to a revolution, but can also point to a methodological problem. A famous recent example is the report on neutrino particles, which allegedly broke the speed of light, and with it the special theory of relativity (read also: How dare one particle?).
But here we are not dealing with neutrino particles but with neurons - nerve cells. The following statement may seem "illogical": normal activity of nerve cells causes damage to their DNA. However, this is exactly the claim of Elsa Suberbielle and her colleagues, from the laboratory of Lennart Mucke at the Gladstone Research Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco, as published on March 24, 2013 in Nature Neuroscience.
The researchers transferred a group of mice from the cage to which they were accustomed to a new cage, rich in visual stimuli, olfactory stimuli and texture stimuli - a real flood of new information. After two hours of being in the "new world" the mice were returned to their familiar environment. Then the researchers found in the brain cells (neurons) of the mice signs of DNA damage, double-strand breaks (DSB's). In such breaks, both DNA strands are cut, so that there is no normal strand left that can be repaired. Therefore these DNA damages are particularly difficult to repair.
Is it true that normal neuro-brain activity, even if intensified, causes severe DNA breaks? It seems strange. A new environment and new stimuli are supposed to activate genes that create new nerve branches (synapses), thus imprinting new memories and establishing learning. But there is no fundamental difference between activating genes and breaking DNA? This is especially strange when it comes to brain cells, since in large parts of the brain the nerve cells with which the animal was born will accompany it until it returns (unlike certain tissues in the body, whose cells are replaced during life). Indeed, what is considered a particularly severe damage to DNA is nothing but a normal process in brain cells during learning? Mookie states in an interview that this question bothers them, and they are trying to find out. It also became clear to the researchers that after the return to "routine" the double-stranded breaks in the DNA were soon repaired.
But that was not the end of the experiment. At the same time as the described group of mice, a group of mice with an excessive tendency to accumulate in the brain the beta-amyloid protein, a characteristic accumulation of Alzheimer's disease, was transferred to an environment full of novelties. And here, it turned out that the brain cells of these mice initially had more double-stranded breaks, and that the number of breaks increased following their transfer to the new environment, but the process of repairing the breaks was very slow in them. And more: treatment of mice suffering from Alzheimer's symptoms with a drug known to be anti-epileptic, and to reduce excessive brain activity, reduced the DNA breaks following exposure to the highly stimulating environment.
So what's going on here? Should Alzheimer's patients be protected from brain activity? At this point it is surely a too hasty conclusion. And in any case, it seems impossible not to agree with Mookie's claim, as she expressed in an interview with The Scientist: Delete
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I liked very interesting!!
https://www.ramhealthy.com
May I ask why you almost never post a link to the original article?
With all due respect for the interesting articles you bring, you should start adding the relevant links. Adds to the professionalism of the site with almost no additional work.
Stress, the first hormone in the chain that is subsequently released in the brain, CRH, activates mast cells and causes inflammation
(and the oxidative stress) and these can cause damage to the cell and DNA:
Neurotensin and CRH Interactions Augment Human Mast Cell Activation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498358/
For the one above me, I am studying medicine, and I can tell you that insulin also makes the change you are talking about, and this is also self-evident, you do not need all the proteins listed in the DNA in the same amount, and over time you may need more or at least a certain protein, and the meaning is not For a change in the DNA, the sequence of the nucleotides does not change, only the amount you produce a certain protein from a certain sequence changes.
In any case, it is too early to say anything about the article, especially when the mechanisms of the DNA in the brain cells are not yet completely clear and it is impossible to know if there is a reason why the DNA behaves in this way (and there is almost certainly an evolutionary reason for this) and in addition we need to check whether the cells in the human brain behave in the same way. Anyway, studies like this are why we live more than twice as long on average as a person 2 years ago, glad to hear about advances.
I happened to hear the claim that the soul (or brain) can shape the DNA from a large number of different sources.
Recently I also read about how they discovered mechanisms that allow the brain to change the behavior of the DNA without changing it but by turning off and on areas of it. We gave this science the name epigenetics.
The research in the current article shows that brain/mental activity also has an effect on the DNA itself.
The thought that occurs to me is that if thought could affect the DNA it may be in a positive way (if the thoughts are creative such as in a learning situation) and probably also in a negative way (if it is brain activity in a stress situation).
It is known that negative emotions produce toxins in the body. Perhaps these can explain the fragments found in the DNA of the mice.
What is interesting is that it sounds as if the mice actually received "positive" stimuli, those that stimulate a learning process, and it sounds a bit strange that these would create DNA breaks. This is assuming that these fragments are damage caused to the DNA. But what if the breaks are part of a process that should allow the DNA to reshape itself? Similar to a muscle that is being trained. It is damaged by training, but the body regenerates it in a stronger way than before.
Just a thought…
Brain activity is cellular activity, and cellular activity can affect the cell nucleus. Perhaps a chemical imbalance resulting from overactivity can cause an imbalance in the creation of proteins or the fragility of the DNA.
Could it be that this is the mechanism that underlies early learning, meaning that connections are formed, and in the case of a lack of synchronization (=incorrect learning) they will change..
White cells also make changes in DNA as part of the immune process
And there is an unclear connection between the immune system and the brain