Found fountain of youth, claim researchers as study on THIS oil shows it has Oleic Acid that brain uses to learn and form memories

Who does not wish to live a long and healthy life? But in life, the healthy part is important to savour the length, most will agree. Many people dread experiencing the cognitive and mood declines that come sometimes as a package deal with advancing age. We often see old persons struggling with failing cognitive faculties. Some suffer from depression and forget what it is like to genuinely enjoy life like depression and mood declines set in.

According to a report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of researchers has revealed that oleic acid produced in the brain is an essential regulator of the process that enables learning and memory and supports proper mood regulation.

The finding has paved the path to discovering potential new therapeutic strategies to counteract cognitive and mood decline in patients with neurological disorders, reports Science Daily.

A study published in Researchgate in October 2008 cited researchers from the Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands, Spain and the Institut Européen De Chimie Et Biologie among others, suggesting that:

Back to the present 2022 study:

While searching for new ways to prevent or treat these and other related conditions, a team at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas - USA) and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI) at Texas Children's Hospital identified the role of Oleic Acid in memory and mood sustenance and regulation inside the brain.

The Texan study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that oleic acid produced in the brain is an essential regulator of the process that enables learning and memory and supports proper mood regulation.

The 2008 findings showed Olive oil's (Oleic acid's) role in blood pressure control. The 2022 study findings lay the foundation work to discovering potential new therapeutic strategies to counteract cognitive and mood decline in patients with neurological disorders. Though the 2008 study recommends more use of olive oil to tap the Oleic acid in it, the 2022 study by Baylor college says it is not that simple. Perhaps, the latter are highlighting the blood-brain barrier and how the cure must come from within.

"Years ago, scientists thought that the adult mammalian brain was not able to repair and regenerate. But research has shown that some brain regions have the capacity of generating new neurons, a process called neurogenesis. The hippocampus region of the adult mammalian brain has the ongoing capacity to form new neurons, to repair and regenerate itself, enabling learning and memory and mood regulation during the adult life," said co-corresponding author Dr Mirjana Maletic-Savatic, associate professor of paediatrics-neurology at Baylor and Texas Children's and an investigator at the Duncan NRI.

"Ever since neurogenesis was discovered, it has been envisioned as 'the fountain of youth.' But, with increasing age, in certain diseases or after exposure to certain drugs or insults, neurogenesis decreases and this has been associated with cognitive decline and depression."

This study endeavoured to reignite the process of neurogenesis to prevent its decline or restore it, reports Science Daily.

"We knew that neurogenesis has a 'master regulator,' a protein within neural stem cells called TLX that is a major player in the birth of new neurons. We however did not know what stimulated TLX to do that. Nobody knew how to activate TLX," said co-corresponding author Dr Damian Young, associate professor of pharmacology and chemical biology and of pathology at Baylor and Texas Children's and member of Baylor's Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"We discovered that a common fatty acid called oleic acid binds to TLX and this increases cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the hippocampus of both young and old mice," said co-first author Dr Prasanna Kandel, who was in the graduate program of Integrative Molecular and Biomedical Sciences at Baylor while working on this project. "This oleic acid is produced within the neural stem cells in order to activate TLX."

Nay, say the researchers. Dr Prasanna Kandel says that while oleic acid is also the major component in olive oil, however, this would not be an effective source of oleic acid because it would likely not reach the brain. The Oleic acid that the brain needs must be produced by the cells themselves.

"This strategy could potentially be used to treat diseases such as major depressive disorders and Alzheimer's disease. This is incredibly exciting because it provides a new way of treating these debilitating diseases in need of effective treatments," Young said.

Dr Prasanna Kandel hopes that this finding may help researchers find a formulation to help new mothers who battle post-partum depression, sometimes with disastrous outcomes.

Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital, University of Texas, MD Anderson, Houston; Rice University, Universidad de Barcelona, Biomedical Research Institute Sant Pau and Pfizer Regenerative Medicine synergised on this project.