{"id":617091,"date":"2026-09-07T09:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T09:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617091\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T09:48:08","slug":"brain-cells-once-thought-to-help-may-actually-drive-cognitive-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/617091\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain Cells Once Thought to Help May Actually Drive Cognitive Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, scientists assumed that oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce myelin, the protective coating around nerve fibers, were always supportive of healthy brain function<\/a>. But new research from the University of Edinburgh and the UK Dementia Research Institute challenges that view, showing that dysfunction in these cells may actively contribute to age-related cognitive decline.<\/p>\n

The team studied participants from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, a unique group whose cognitive abilities have been tracked from childhood into older age. Between ages 70 and 82, nearly all experienced some decline, but the rate varied.<\/p>\n

An examination of brain tissue after death showed that people with a more serious decline in cognitive function<\/a> exhibited particular cellular changes, including fewer large nerve fibers and an excess of unhealthy myelin, especially around the remaining large fibers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the levels of NRF2, a protein found in oligodendrocytes that controls hundreds of protective genes, were lowered. Significantly, these changes were associated not with cognitive ability at a single point in time, but with the rate of decline over the years, thus highlighting the dynamic aspect of brain aging<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Study uncovered a link between low brain sugar levels and the development of myelin<\/a><\/p>\n

To examine causality, the researchers carried out experiments on mice in which they selectively disrupted NRF2 in oligodendrocytes. As a result, there was an excess of myelin and a reduction in the number of large nerve fibers, which was similar to the abnormalities found in human brain tissue.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the animals\u2019 ability to perform cognitively improved with age was impaired, showing that oligodendrocyte dysfunction can directly cause changes in myelin and nerve fibers. Thus, the study establishes a causal relationship between oligodendrocyte health and cognitive decline.<\/p>\n

The findings are especially exciting because the NRF2 pathway is already targeted by drugs currently available, such as those used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS). It has already been demonstrated that activating NRF2 can improve cognition in patients with MS, which means these drugs could potentially be repurposed to protect against age-related decline.<\/p>\n

Oligodendrocytes, once thought to be purely supportive, can actually accelerate aging when they malfunction.<\/p>\n

Major Brain Repair Discovery to Fight Against Multiple Sclerosis, Neurological Disorders<\/a><\/p>\n

Because the NRF2 pathway is already targeted by existing therapies (like those used in multiple sclerosis), there\u2019s a realistic path to testing whether these drugs could protect cognition in older adults.<\/p>\n

The condition of one\u2019s myelin might account for why there is a faster decline in some people than in others, even if their neurons appear to be fairly normal.<\/p>\n

This opens up a frontier where dementia research could expand beyond neurons to the \u201cinfrastructure\u201d of the brain, the wiring and insulation that keep signals flowing.<\/p>\n

Journal Reference:<\/p>\n

Craig, G.A., Merour, E., Seeker, L.A. et al. Oligodendrocyte dysfunction in human age-related cognitive decline. Nat Med (2026). DOI: 10.1038\/s41591-026-04608-y<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, scientists assumed that oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce myelin, the protective coating around nerve fibers, were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2992,84,12815,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-617091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-aging","tag-brain","tag-cognitive-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}