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Unexpected amount of blood-borne protein enters the young brain

The discovery that larger quantities of blood-borne proteins enter the brains of young, healthy mice than enter those of aged animals will alter our understanding of the blood–brain barrier, and how it changes with age.
  1. Roeben N. Munji

    1. Roeben N. Munji is in the Departments of Pharmacology and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.

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  2. Richard Daneman

    1. Richard Daneman is in the Departments of Pharmacology and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.

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The blood vessels in the brain have properties that limit their permeability to blood-borne ions, molecules and cells1. This blood–brain barrier (BBB) is crucial for proper neuronal function and for protecting the brain from harm, but it is also a major impediment to drug delivery1. It has been proposed that the BBB becomes more permeable with age, but, writing in Nature, Yang et al.2 find something quite different. They show that the BBB allows blood-borne proteins to enter the healthy brain at a much higher rate than previously thought, and that the overall amount of plasma proteins entering the brain actually decreases with age. The authors’ work could help researchers to understand how the brain responds to systemic protein signals, and the role of the BBB in age-related cognitive decline. It might also lead to improved approaches for delivering drugs into the brain.

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Nature 583, 362-363 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01791-x

References

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