Here’s my plan to rejuvenate my ageing brain–and body:
Secure three or four aborted male caucasian first trimester fetuses. Extract all the
stem cells from one, extract only the mesenchymal stem cells from the rest. Slowly
inject all stem cells from one– saving the mesenchymal cells for possible rejection problems.

Here’s how I think this will likely tap into the generational/species immortality: first
and most important, at around birth and shortly after, postmytotic neural stem cells
commit suicide after all the postmytotic neurons are formed. When the fetus is aborted
the developmental program that ‘program’ these cells to commit suicide is aborted!
If these cells are injected into the blood stream of an adult they find there way into the
brain where the ‘adult program’ takes over and they produce YOUNG ADULT TYPE
postmitotic neurons. It looks to me like they will replace our missing neurons and then
replace the old ones as they die off.

Generally, all stem cells and neurons commit suicide when they become damaged so
much by age. The hormone secreting neurons do it at a much faster rate.

The rest of the stem cells will engraft into the proper organs and tissues, produce a dual immune system, produce prime young adult type somatic cells, co-populate with
and replace my old dying stem cells. They should produce ten times or more offspring
than my old cells. Depending on the ratio and output of young and old stem cells the
normal cellular turnover ‘hopefully’ over several years transform this 77 year old into
some kind of a hybrid 20 something…

For more information please google “fetomaternal microchimerism,” also “chimeric
individuals,” and “mesenchymal stem cells and immunity.”

I am actively pursuing doing this experiment on myself and would love hearing your
thoughts. Use the above any way you like but please don’t attribute it to me. If you
like, say from “Gill G Amesh.” ^_^

One of your many admirers,

Roy Yowell
17 Glen Lake Dr
Pacific Grove Ca
93950
831-647-1505

As to gender differences in gray matter loss in aging, the answer is not clear. This is a great full text-available paper; Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies of Older Adults: A Shrinking Brain, by Resnick, et al., which touches on this subject and cites the relevant work in this area to date: http://neuro.cjb.net/content/23/8/3295.full.

Quoting from it:

“Rates of tissue loss were similar in men and women and in older and younger adults. In contrast, the rates of increase in ventricular volume, reflecting central brain atrophy, were significantly greater in older compared with younger individuals. Although we (Resnick et al., 2000) and others (Yue et al., 1997) have observed sex differences in V-CSF in older adults, with older men having larger ventricles than older women, trends toward sex differences in rates of V-CSF enlargement did not reach significance when adjusted for baseline ventricular volume. Although some studies have suggested that men may show earlier increases in ventricular size (Kaye et al., 1992), the magnitude and age at which sex differences appear remain unclear. We have begun enrolling younger BLSA participants into our neuroimaging study to investigate the age at which rates of brain atrophy accelerate in both men and women.”

One thing is clear, and that is that male centenarians and super-centenarians, while less frequent in the population than women, fare considerably better cognitively than do their female counterparts. The reason for this is not known. — Mike Darwin

I’m 33, greying hair, and drove to work listening to an internet broadcast discussing neuron loss just this morning. I consider it a present and pressing issue. Glad to see all of this.

The speaker said that men lose many more neurons than women, too. Given that it was my grandmother, not my grandfather, who succombed to senile dementia, I presume that means I am very predisposed to neuron loss by my heredity. Great.