Ageing drives changes in neuronal and cognitive function, the decline of which is a major feature of many neurological disorders. The hippocampus, a brain region subserving roles of spatial and episodic memory and learning, is sensitive to the detrimental effects of ageing at morphological and molecular levels. With advancing age, synapses in various hippocampal subfields exhibit impaired long-term potentiation, an electrophysiological correlate of learning and memory.

The authors hypothesized that plasma of an early developmental stage, namely umbilical cord plasma, provides plasticity-promoting proteins which could revitalize the hippocampus and improve cognitive function in aged mice. Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP2), a blood-borne factor enriched in human cord plasma, young mouse plasma, and young mouse hippocampi, appears in the brain after systemic administration and increases synaptic plasticity and hippocampal-dependent cognition in aged mice. Depletion experiments in aged mice revealed TIMP2 to be necessary for the cognitive benefits conferred by cord plasma. The authors suggest that human cord plasma contains plasticity-enhancing proteins of high translational value for targeting ageing- or disease-associated hippocampal dysfunction.

.Castellano JM, Mosher KI, Abbey RJ, McBride AA, James ML, Berdnik D, Shen JC, Zou B, Xie XS, Tingle M, Hinkson IV, Angst MS and Wyss-Coray T: Human umbilical cord plasma proteins revitalize hippocampal function in aged mice. Nature [Epub ahead of print, April 19, 2017; doi: 10.1038/nature22067].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28424512