Love Hormone' Oxytocin Could Be Used to Treat Cognitive Disorders Like Alzheimer's

A study by Japanese scientists published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications reveals that oxytocin — the hormone known to induce feelings of love and well-being — also reverses some of the damage caused by amyloid plaques in the learning and memory center of the brain in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease, reports ScienceDaily . Perfusion of the mouse hippocampus with amyloid ß (Aß) verified that Aß causes the signaling abilities of neurons in the slices to decline, and additional perfusion with oxytocin increased signaling abilities, suggesting the hormone can reverse the impairment of synaptic plasticity. In further experimentation, the scientists artificially impeded ocytocin receptors in the hippocampus slices to determine if oxytocin could reverse Aß-induced impairment of synaptic plasticity without binding to the receptors — and the hormone could not do so when blocked. Artificial suppression of these chemical activities showed that adding oxytocin to the slices did not reverse the damage to synaptic plasticity caused by Aß, while oxytocin by itself does not impact synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, but somehow can reverse the damage of Aß. "Our study puts forth the interesting possibility that oxytocin could be a novel therapeutic modality for the treatment of memory loss associated with cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease," said Professor Akiyoshi Saitoh at the Tokyo University of Science. "We expect that our findings will open up a new pathway to the creation of new drugs for the treatment of dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease."