Benefits of exercise on aging brain obtained without exercise - by plasma transfer.

There is a large literature on beneficial effects of exercise on brain health in agings adults such as improving memory and cognition. Mouse experiments by Horowitz et al. raise the possibility that affluent human couch potatoes might be able to obtain these benefits by receiving injections of plasma (blood without its cellular components) from people who have exercised. They transferred plasma from regularly exercising adult or aged mice to aged sedentary mice. This increased the formation of new hippocampal neurons, increased the concentrations of neurotrophic factors, and improved cognition in behavioral tests of the sedentary mice. Their abstract:

Reversing brain aging may be possible through systemic interventions such as exercise. We found that administration of circulating blood factors in plasma from exercised aged mice transferred the effects of exercise on adult neurogenesis and cognition to sedentary aged mice. Plasma concentrations of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)–specific phospholipase D1 (Gpld1), a GPI-degrading enzyme derived from liver, were found to increase after exercise and to correlate with improved cognitive function in aged mice, and concentrations of Gpld1 in blood were increased in active, healthy elderly humans. Increasing systemic concentrations of Gpld1 in aged mice ameliorated age-related regenerative and cognitive impairments by altering signaling cascades downstream of GPI-anchored substrate cleavage. We thus identify a liver-to-brain axis by which blood factors can transfer the benefits of exercise in old age.