Restore Youthfulness & Vitality to the Aging Brain & Body | Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray

**Tony Wyss-Coray** (0:00)
For the first time, we could take an old brain, and we could give factors from a young organism and ask, is that going to change the age of the brain? And that's indeed what it did. So we saw that there's stem cells in the brain of these mice that they got reactivated. There was less inflammation, more activity that we can measure in the brain. And then most importantly, we actually saw that their memory function improved.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:27)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray. Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray is a Professor of Neurology at Stanford School of Medicine and an expert in identifying factors that can help prevent and reverse organ degeneration and aging. Today, we discuss the factors that are present in young blood. Yes, you heard that right. And the factors that are present in blood after exercise that have been shown to rejuvenate the brain and other tissues in older individuals. Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray's lab has discovered several proteins that are present in high amounts when we are young and that circulate in the blood and that diminish with age. And if these are supplied to the aged body and brain, can reverse key features of aging, including improved cognition, tissue recovery from stress, damage and more. We also discuss how aging is non-linear. It does not progress uniformly across the lifespan. And we discuss the fact that there are certain phases, such as puberty, your early 40s and your early 60s, when aging is accelerated and then slows again. We also discuss how different organs in your body age at different rates and how you can measure that. Today's discussion is a very important one, because so often these days we hear about anti-aging and longevity. But today you're going to hear about the real science of organ rejuvenation. We also are going to talk about the role of sunlight, fasting, hormones, and the use of specific molecular approaches to improve your vitality and health. We also, of course, discuss exercise and social interactions, but in the context of the specific molecules they release into your blood to promote and enhance health and how you can leverage that information. Tony Wyss-Coray is a celebrated pioneer in the science of these topics because of the rigor he applies to the work. He's not just talking about some molecule that someday there'll be a drug or some activity that we already know promotes health. He's an avid tool developer for measuring and reversing aging. So today we discuss all of that, and you're sure to come away from the discussion with both tools to improve your immediate and long-term health, as well as a deeper understanding of the biology. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray. Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray, welcome.

**Tony Wyss-Coray** (3:03)
Thank you.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:04)
Great to see another Stanford colleague here. You're a true pioneer. Your work is the first work that I heard of where somebody did a serious experiment taking blood from a younger organism, putting it into an older organism, and observing very interesting things. If you would, could you tell us about that experiment and what, if anything, has been done in humans to examine whether young blood, such a loaded term, but young blood can be a rejuvenation factor for the more mature body or brain?

**Tony Wyss-Coray** (3:38)
Yeah, so we were actually not the first ones.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:40)
Ah, okay.

**Tony Wyss-Coray** (3:42)
But we collaborated with the person who in more modern times used this model again. It's called parabiosis, where you have a surgical model where an old and a young mouse are paired, and their circulation allows for exchange of blood from the young to the old animal. And my colleague who recruited me actually to Stanford, Tom Randall, used this model to study aging of stem cells in the muscle. So he discovered that with old age, the muscle sort of deteriorates and doesn't regenerate. And when he used a mouse, an old mouse, and paired it with a young mouse, and now this young circulation, infusing, if you will, the old muscle, he regenerated that muscle, and it looked almost like a young muscle.
And at the same time, he also observed effects in other tissues, including in the brain. And that's when we started to collaborate and explored what could the effects of the brain, of young factors on the brain be. And in part, we were also intrigued by that because we had separate studies in humans where we tried to find blood signatures of Alzheimer's disease. And what we noticed is that we could see proteins that were correlated or even predictive of Alzheimer's disease. But the most striking difference was between younger and older people. So we saw that the concentration of their proteins was very different in young people and old people. And when you see something like that in biology, you always ask, is this cause or effect? So do the proteins in our body change because they respond to the aging of the brain, for example, or do they actually drive the aging of the brain? And here Tom had this model that allowed him to ask that question, or that allowed us together to ask that question. Because for the first time, we could take an old brain and we could give factors from a young organism and ask, is that going to change the age of the brain? And that's indeed what it did. So we saw that there are stem cells in the brain of these mice that they got reactivated. There was less inflammation, more activity that we can measure in the brain with electrical activity of neurons. And then most importantly, we actually saw that their memory function improved. And so to your question, is that relevant for humans? We actually tried to translate that. And we can talk more about this, where the stage of that field is right now, to see whether it can be translated.