Chemical May Make Old Brains Work Better

WASHINGTON -- A study in very old monkeys indicates a brain chemical called GABA can make old brains work better.

Audie Leventhal, a researcher from the University of Utah School of Medicine, said the neurochemical improves vision and thinking by silencing interfering static from other brain cells. He said GABA levels fall in older people as well as older monkeys. And he said the decline can make higher-order thinking harder to do.

The good news is that the problem may be simple to treat. Existing drugs such as Xanax increase GABA production, Leventhal said. But these drugs haven't been carefully tested on the elderly.

Leventhal and his colleagues studied visual function in monkeys he believes are the oldest in the world. The monkeys live in a colony in Kunming, China, established as part of a Chinese and Russian experimental program in the 1950s.

At 30 years old -- around 90 in people years -- these animals have lived about twice as long as they do in the wild.

"They really do sort of look like grandpa. They have thinning hair and wrinkles," Leventhal said.

The findings are published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

An outside expert said the finding looks important, but he said it is too soon to tell if it could lead to a treatment.

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