[Given the talk about the Rona vaxxx causing degenerative brain diseases similar to Parkinson's and Alzheimer’s I wonder if this approach could have any benefit to those effected by the shots. All we need right now is tens of thousands of (or more) people developing these kinds of degenerative brain problems because of the vaxxx. The effect that would have on society could be catastrophic . . . SC]

By Ali Le Vere - June 16, 2022

One promising therapy that promotes neurogenesis and is effective in pre-clinical studies of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is near infrared light therapy, and it may improve other mental illnesses and neurodegenerative disorders including dementia, stroke, ALS, and traumatic brain injury as well

Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are the most common neurodegenerative disorders. The former is a type of dementia that occurs secondary to the accumulation of abnormal protein deposits in the brain, including β-amyloid plaques and intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles made of tau protein (1). Upon neuroimaging studies, gross cerebral cortical atrophy is found, meaning that the part of the brain responsible for executive functions such as learning, memory, language, decision-making, and problem-solving progressively degenerates (1). In addition, gliosis, or brain inflammation, is a hallmark characteristic of Alzheimer’s (1).

One hypothesis that is championed proposes that Alzheimer’s occurs due to self-propagating, prion-like protein assemblies, which interfere with the function of nerve cells (2). An alternate theory is that these so-called proteinopathies occur secondary to a microvascular hemorrhage or brain bleed (3). The brain bleed is believed to be the result of age-induced degradation of cerebral capillaries, which creates neuron-killing protein plaques and tangles (3).

Dysfunction of mitochondria, the energy-generating powerhouses of the cell, is also implicated in Alzheimer’s, as reduced efficacy of these organelles creates oxidative stress-inducing reactive oxygen species, or free radicals, which lead to neuronal cell death (4). Whatever the cause, extensive death of brain cells occurs, which explains the cognitive deficits that occur with Alzheimer’s disease, in addition to symptoms such as impaired judgment, confusion, agitation, linguistic abnormalities, social withdrawal, and even hallucinations (1).

Parkinson’s disease, on the other hand, is characterized by progressive death of dopamine-producing neurons in a region of the brainstem called the substantial nigra, but it can extend to other brain areas such as the locus coeruleus, olfactory bulb, dorsal motor nucleus of the vagal nerve, and even the cortex in late stages (5).

As a result, the primary manifestation is that dopamine deficiency appears in the basal ganglia, a set of nuclei embedded deep in the brain hemispheres that is responsible for motor control (6). This leads to the cardinal manifestation of Parkinson’s, namely, a movement disorder that includes bradykinesia or slow movement, loss of voluntary movement, muscular rigidity, and resting tremor (7).

Not unlike what happens in Alzheimer’s, accumulation of abnormal intracellular protein aggregates known as Lewy bodies, composed of a protein called α-synuclein, is thought to be central to the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (8). Like Alzheimer’s, mitochondrial dysfunction induced by genetic mutations, toxic agents, or damage to blood vessels is also considered to contribute to neuron cell death in Parkinson’s (9).

Toxin exposure is especially implicated, as animal studies hint that development of Parkinson’s disease may occur as a byproduct of exposure to neurotoxins such as rotenone or paraquat (10). Impaired blood brain barrier function and damage to the endothelial cells of the vascular system, which line the interior surface of blood vessels, are also thought to play a role in Parkinson’s (10).

Overturning Old Notions Of Neuroscience

The central dogma of neuroscience conceived of the central nervous system tissue as “perennial” after the doctrines of Giulio Bizzozero, the most prominent Italian histologist, who decreed that the lifelong cells of the nervous system were devoid of replicative potential (11). In other words, the perennial nature ascribed to the nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord meant that nerve cells were believed to be incapable of undergoing proliferation, or cell division, in the postnatal brain (11).

While the early stage of in utero prenatal development known as embryogenesis permits massive neurogenesis, or the ability to create new nerve cells, the scientific consensus up until the end of the twentieth century held that neurogenesis was arrested after birth in mammals.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who led the charge in the neuroscience discipline in the later half of the nineteenth century onward and won a Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, in fact stated that: “Once development was ended, the fonts of growth and regeneration of the axons and dendrites dried up irrevocably. In adult centers, the nerve paths are something fixed and immutable: everything may die, nothing may be regenerated” (11).

Acknowledgment of the mere possibility of adult neurogenesis was hampered by the fact that scientists lacked the visualization techniques to detect neural stem cells, the precursors to new neurons and means by which neurogenesis occurs, and also did not have access to the molecular markers and microscopy required to observe cells in different cycle phases.

This view of nervous tissue as perennial was also reinforced by clinical observations that patients with chronic neurodegeneration, traumatic brain lesions, and cerebrovascular diseases do not experience functional recovery (11). Prevailing theories posited that adult neurogenesis was an evolutionary unlikelihood, since it would interfere with pre-existing neuronal connections and the fine-tuned electrochemical communication in the nervous system, as well as disrupt memory recall, which was believed to occur via stable neuronal circuits created and encoded during learning (11).

That brain cells are finite, and incapable of regeneration, painted a portrait of doom and gloom and inexorable debilitation for patients suffering from devastating neurodegenerative conditions. However, relatively recent discoveries have overturned these antiquated conceptions by revealing that the brain is plastic, or pliable, and that even neurons in adult higher vertebrates are capable of neurogenesis.

Scientists Discover Neural Regeneration Is Possible

In the 1960s, these postulates of the old neurobiology were disproven when Joseph Altman and colleagues performed an experiment where radioactively labelled thymidine, one of the nucleotide base pairs that makes up DNA, was incorporated into a brain area called the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and integrated into the genetic material of what was later confirmed via electron microscopy to be dividing neurons (12, 13). In essence, this illustrated that neurons were undergoing mitosis, a process of cell division where genetically identical daughter cells are created, and showed that adult neurogenesis is possible.

Another nail in the coffin of this antiquated perception of the nervous system was that neural stem cells, the multipotent, self-renewing progenitors from which new neurons arise, were found in the brains of adult mammals, and discovered to undergo expansion in their populations when prompted by signaling molecules called growth factors and morphogens (11). The multiplication and differentiation of neural stem cells, which are residents of the central nervous system, is essential for neurogenesis (14).

Neural stem cells are capable of generating all of the cell types of the nervous system, including astrocytes, glial cells, and what are called oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system and Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system (11). Researchers Colucci-D’Amato and Bonita in fact state that, “To date neural stem cells have been isolated from nearly all areas of the embryonic brain and in a growing list of adult mammalian brain areas, including cerebellum and cortex” (11, p. 268).

Other advances, such as confocal microscopy and the identification of cellular markers which allowed the phenotype of cells to be characterized all culminated in the realization that neurogenesis occurs continuously in some brain area, such as the hippocampus and subventricolar zone (SVZ), the former of which is responsible for the formation and consolidation of memories (11). To date, neurogenesis has been shown to be influenced by various chemical, pharmacological, and environmental stimuli.

For instance, work by researcher Fernando Nottebohm demonstrated the spontaneous replacement of neurons in the adult avian brain (15). In song birds such as canaries, which experience seasonal modification in their songs, new neurons are recruited into their neuronal circuitry in a way that may be dependent upon social and reproductive interactions, territorial defense, migratory patterns and food caching (15).

This all should serve as a beacon of hope for patients experiencing the ravages of neurodegenerative disease, as it may mean that epigenetics, or the way gene expression changes based on lifestyle factors, may lend itself to neurogenesis and the reversal of these scourges of mankind.

For example, researchers state that an enriched environment, learning, exercise, exposure to different odorant molecules, and drugs such as antidepressants, steroids, and alcohol can all favorably or unfavorably impact neurogenesis (11). These newfound revelations are being used in fact as an impetus to find cures for a laundry list of neurodegenerative diseases (11).

Novel Therapy Shown To Grow New Nerve Cells

Despite this research, the prevailing view of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is that their underlying pathophysiology, a relentless progression of neuronal death, remains irreversible (10). Thus far, then, approaches have aimed to slow or stop neuronal cell death or to develop disease-modifying treatments that could stabilize the rate of neurodegeneration (10).

One non-pharmacological therapy that may be able to actually regenerate brain cells, however, is light in the near infrared range, also known as low-level laser or light emitting diode (LED) therapy that utilizes wavelengths in the red to infrared spectrum.

Near infrared light therapy has the potential to “mitigate ubiquitous processes relating to cell damage and death,” and may have applications in conditions that “converge on common pathways of inflammation and oxidative stress” (10). This is demonstrated by the widespread efficacy of near infrared light therapy in improving conditions including traumatic brain injury, ischemic stroke, major depression, and age-related macular degeneration (10) . . .

[SNIP]