hormone boosts memory tagged posts

This illustration shows how klotho treatment in mice rapidly improved learning and memory of a hidden platform in a water maze. Credit: Leon et al.

Mice treated with klotho do better on tests of memory and motor skills. In a study that augurs well for the therapeutic potential of klotho – a life-extending protein hormone that a minority of people naturally produce at high levels – scientists at UC San Francisco have found that administering a fragment of the klotho protein to young, aging or impaired mice rapidly improves their cognitive and physical performance.

While previous studies had revealed associations between elevated klotho levels and better cognition, that research had been done with mice genetically engineered to continuously produce high klotho levels and in people carrying g...