University of Queensland trial on mice, tissue cells, a potential first step in treating COVID-19 brain fog
/ By Kenji SatoScientists are confident they will have a treatment for COVID-19 brain fog in five to 10 years following successful trials on mice and human brain tissue.
Key points:
- Scientist Julio Aguado said he had identified drugs that can reverse COVID-19-related neurodegeneration
- Dr Aguado said the virus caused "zombie" cells to accumulate, speeding up brain ageing and memory loss
- The research was tested on mice and tissue cells but had not yet progressed to clinical trials
Researchers from the University of Queensland said they had found a way to kill senescent or "zombie" cells that grew faster in a COVID-19-affected brain.
The cells were found to speed up the effects of ageing on the brain, causing memory loss, brain fog, and neurodegeneration.
The scientists found four pre-existing drugs successfully eliminated these cells in mice as well as "organoids", or brain tissue grown from human stem cells.
Lead author Dr Julio Aguado said it had yet to be tested on a live human but he was confident.
"The good news is some of these drugs are already being used in clinics for other purposes," he said.
"Other drugs in clinical trials are showing little to no toxicity in humans, so I think in five to ten years, maybe even less, these drugs will be available to the public."
The peer-reviewed paper was published in scientific journal, Nature Ageing.
It notes that long COVID was also associated with sleep disorders, hyposmia, and hypogeusia.
It found that in one in four cases, it also caused "substantial" cognitive impairment.
Potential anti-ageing effects
Dr Aguado said further down the track the treatment could even be used to reverse the effects of ageing on people who did not have long COVID.
He said there were promising results coming out of animal trials, and he believed it was "just a matter of time" before those anti-ageing effects were replicated in humans.
"In aged mice treated with senolytics, there's increased cognitive performance, improved survival, and overall better health span," Dr Aguado said.
"What we envisage is these senolytic drugs will have a profound effect in how these senescence-driven pathologies can be reverted."
Potential uses for dementia
University of Queensland organoid specialist Ernst Wolvetang said it could have major ramifications on age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
He said organoid research made it much faster to get a drug ready to be tested on actual humans.
"Our study beautifully demonstrates how human brain models can accelerate the pre-clinical screening of therapeutics, while also moving towards animal-free testing, with potentially global impacts," Professor Wolvetang said.
"This same method of drug screening could also help Alzheimer's research and a whole host of neurodegenerative diseases where senescence is a driver."