Diabetes drug makes brain cells grow
The widely used diabetes drug metformin comes with a rather unexpected and alluring side effect; it encourages the growth of new neurons in the brain. The discovery is an important step toward therapies that aim to repair the brain, not by introducing new stem cells but rather by spurring those already present.
The widely used diabetes drug metformin comes with a rather unexpected and alluring side effect; it encourages the growth of new neurons in the brain.
The discovery is an important step toward therapies that aim to repair the brain, not by introducing new stem cells but rather by spurring those that are already present into action, says the study’s lead author Freda Miller, of the University of Toronto-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children.
Earlier work by Ms Miller’s team highlighted a pathway known as aPKC-CBP for its essential role in “telling” neural stem cells where and when to differentiate into mature neurons. As it happened, others had found before them that the same pathway is important for the metabolic effects of the drug metformin, but in liver cells.
If metformin activates the CBP pathway in the liver, they thought, maybe it could also do that in neural stem cells of the brain to encourage brain repair.
The new evidence lends support to a promising idea in both mouse brains and human cells. Mice taking metformin not only showed an increase in the birth of new neurons, but they were also better able to learn the location of a hidden platform in a standard maze test of spatial learning.
While it remains to be seen whether the popular diabetes drug might already be serving as a brain booster for those who are now taking it, there are already some early hints it may have cognitive benefits for people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers claimed metformin may improve Alzheimer’s symptoms by enhancing brain repair, with Ms Miller confirming they now hope to test whether metformin might help repair the brains of those who have suffered brain injury due to trauma or radiation therapies for cancer.
National Diabetes Week kicked off on Sunday (8 July 2012). Read DPS News’ story De-stress your diabetes.
