In a recent study published in Science Advances, Japanese researchers showed that a low protein diet can accelerate brain degeneration in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. More importantly, they found that Amino LP7 — a supplement containing seven specific amino acids — can slow down brain degeneration and dementia development in these animals. Their work expands on previous studies, which have demonstrated the effectiveness of Amino LP7 in improving cognitive function.

Dr. Makoto Higuchi from the National Institutes for Quantum Sciences and Technology, one of the lead scientists on the study, explains, “In older individuals, low protein diets are linked to poor maintenance of brain function. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. So, we wanted to understand whether supplementation with essential amino acids can protect the brains of older people from dementia, and if yes, what mechanisms would contribute to this protective effect.”

First, the researchers studied how a low protein diet affects the brain in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, which generally demonstrate neurodegeneration and abnormal protein aggregates called “Tau” aggregates in the brain. They found that mice consuming a low protein diet not only showed accelerated brain degeneration but also had signs of poor neuronal connectivity. Interestingly, these effects were reversed after supplementation with Amino LP7, indicating that the combination of seven specific amino acids could inhibit brain damage.

Next, the research team examined how Amino LP7 affects different signs of brain degeneration in the Alzheimer’s model. Untreated mice showed high levels of progressive brain degeneration, but Amino LP7 treatment suppressed neuronal death and thereby reduced brain degeneration, even though the Tau aggregates remained. According to Dr. Akihiko Kitamura, who also led this study, “Tau plaques in the brain are characteristic of Alzheimer’s and most treatments target them. However, we have shown that it is possible to overcome this Tau deposition and prevent brain atrophy via supplementation with Amino LP7.”

Next, to understand how Amino LP7 protects the brain, the researchers comprehensively analyzed the gene-level changes induced by Amino LP7. Their findings were quite encouraging. They observed that Amino LP7 reduces brain inflammation and also prevents kynurenine, an inflammation inducer, from entering the brain, thereby preventing inflammatory immune cells from attacking neurons. They also found that Amino LP7 reduces neuronal death and improves neuronal connectivity, improving brain function.

“These results suggest that essential amino acids can help maintain balance in the brain and prevent brain deterioration. Our study is the first to report that specific amino acids can hinder the development of dementia,” say Dr. Hideaki Sato and Dr. Yuhei Takado, both of whom majorly contributed to the study. “Although our study was performed in mice, it brings hope that amino acid intake could also modify the development of dementias in humans, including Alzheimer’s disease,” they add.

The study by this research group throws open several avenues for better understanding how dementias occur and how they can be prevented. Given that Amino LP7 improves brain function in older people without cognitive impairment, their findings suggest that it could also be effective in people with cognitive dysfunction.

Indeed, this patent-pending supplement could one day help millions worldwide live an improved, dementia-free life.

The study had three Rhesus monkeys sit around a rotary table and take turns to offer an apple slice to one of the other two monkeys. At the same time, the researchers recorded the activity of individual neurons in a brain area known to play a role in social cognition, called the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC).

During these interactions, the monkeys reciprocated past offers of an apple slice and retaliated when they did not receive a slice from another. The researchers’ recordings identified distinct neurons in the dmPFC that responded to the actions of other monkeys in the group. Certain neurons were activated with a particular action and outcome of specific individuals within the group (such as a neighbor monkey offering an apple slice leads to the outcome of receiving the reward). Many of the neurons encoded information not only about the actions and outcomes of specific individuals but also about their past behavior. This information about past interactions with group members influenced an animal’s upcoming decisions to reciprocate or retaliate, and investigators could use the neuronal information to predict which monkey would receive an apple slice from a particular monkey even before it was offered.

“This finding suggested that the dmPFC plays a role in strategic decisions. To test this idea, we disrupted the normal activity in this area and found that the animals were less likely to reciprocate,” says lead author Raymundo Báez-Mendoza, PhD, an investigator in the Department of Neurosurgery at MGH.

The results suggest that the dmPFC plays an important role in mapping out our actions and outcomes as well as the actions of others. “In neuropsychiatric conditions in which this ability is compromised, treatments aimed at improving the functioning of this brain area, either directly or indirectly, might improve peoples’ lives,” says senior author Ziv Williams, MD.

Co-authors include Emma P. Mastrobattista, and Amy J. Wang, MD.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the MGH Fund for Medical Discovery, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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Materials provided by Massachusetts General Hospital. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Among the items being transported are plastics, the ubiquitous consumer material that is found in many products and packaging. The problem is that plastic takes an exceptionally long time to break down in the natural environment. Some plastic trash ends up in harbors, estuaries and on land. But much of it continues to be circulated throughout the ocean and can settle onto the seafloor.

At the root of global climate change and the worldwide plastics pollution problem are two related carbon-based fuels — oil and natural gas. Not only are the two among the key drivers of climate change, they are instrumental in the manufacturing of plastics. As storms intensify and become more frequent, the movement of trash from land to our oceans, and vice versa, is only going to get worse.

Now URI colleagues Davies, associate professor of biological sciences, and Suckling, assistant professor of sustainable aquaculture, are part of an international team of researchers including those from the Zoological Society London and Bangor University in Wales examining an often overlooked phenomenon, the compounding effect of climate change and plastics.

The team identified three significant ways in which the climate crisis and plastics pollution are connected, with the first being how plastic contributes to global greenhouse gases from production through disposal. The second demonstrates how extreme weather, like hurricanes and floods, will disperse and worsen pollution. The third is the effect that climate change and plastics pollution can have on marine species and ecosystems that are vulnerable to both.

The study was led by Helen Ford, a Ph.D. student at Bangor University, who worked with Davies and Suckling when they were at Bangor. The team published its results in a September article in the journal, Science of the Total Environment. Professor Heather Koldewey, senior technical specialist at the Zoological Society London, was the lead author.

“Climate change is undoubtedly one of the most critical global threats of our time,” Koldewey said in a press announcement issued by the zoological society. “Plastic pollution is also having a global impact; from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest parts of the ocean. Both are having a detrimental effect on ocean biodiversity; with climate change heating ocean temperatures and bleaching coral reefs, to plastic damaging habitats and injuring or killing marine species. It’s not a case of which issue is most important, it’s recognizing that the two crises are interconnected and require joint solutions.”

Davies said Ford organized the international team that conducted the study. “The premise of the paper addresses the fact that so many people view plastics pollution and climate change as separate things when they are not,” Davies said. “They arise from the same principal material, oil.

“Climate change and plastic pollution have many similarities, including how we need to address them. We need international collaborations to address this problem, which essentially stems from the over-consumption of finite resources.”

A key issue, according to Suckling, is the transport of plastics and microplastics over vast distances. She said that the Japan earthquake and resulting tsunami of 2011 transported materials all the way to Hawaii. The same thing happens with storms, she said.

Suckling had witnessed Storm Emma when she was in North Wales, which ripped apart one of the marinas during 2018.

“The whole area was flooded with floating white polystyrene particles. The storm had split apart the walkway floating platforms in this marina and spilled out the polystyrene contents, posing a pollution risk,” Suckling said. “This was at a site where an invasive species was being controlled, but plastics which spread from the site could increase the risk of transporting this invasive species.”

Suckling said scientists are researching the ability of plastics to transport invasive species hundreds of miles.

“Since Hurricanes Henri and Ida, we have been looking at storm-induced transport of plastics,” Davies said. “We sent our students out to collect samples from Narragansett Bay before and after the storms so we could start seeing what the impact would be. We are working on that data now. We want to see what the impact of these storms is on plastics in our oceans.

“The great thing about Narragansett Bay is it is so well studied. We are building on 60 years of research at URI or even longer,” Davies said.

Davies also said the state’s expertise in this area, including its universities and administrative agencies, make Rhode Island an ideal place to do the work.

“We have a wide range of disciplines, a relatively small number of stakeholders and a wide range of habitats,” he said.

Since coming to URI, Suckling has published two papers on the impact of microplastics on marine life, particularly sea urchins. One of them, which addresses how sea urchins with different diet habits respond to eating microplastics, was published in the September 2020 online edition of Science of the Total Environment.

“It’s still a relatively new area of science, where we still have much to understand. My work has shown that when we look at sea urchin species with slightly different feeding habits, we observe species-specific responses to ingesting microplastics,” Suckling said.

This highlights that feeding habits could act as a potential indicator for sensitivity to microplastic ingestion, which could be important for impact assessments of plastic pollution and management strategies, according to Suckling.

In the meantime, Davies is leading a Rhode Island Sea Grant project working with Suckling that is examining the links between climate change and plastics.

“What no one has really done until now is quick-start the conversation about plastics and climate change in a concerted way,” Suckling said. “We expect over the next several years, a lot more research will be done in the area.”

Suckling said if marine ecosystems or organisms are already at the brink of what they can handle because of climate change, throwing additional problems at them could push them past their threshold of what they can cope with.