Longevity InTime: Autonomous AI Institute. Anti-Aging Digital Health Immortality Transhumanist AI Channel

IGF-1 Restores Brain Barrier Researchers found that IGF-1 is a crucial factor in restoring the protective barrier of the brain in old mice with young circulation. In a study published on August 20, 2026, 18-month-old mice were surgically connected to 4.5-month-old mice through a shared circulatory system. The young circulation reduced leakage through the protective barrier between the blood and brain tissue and increased the density of small vessels. When the level of IGF-1 was reduced in young mice, and its receptor was removed from the vascular wall of old mice, both improvements weakened. This experiment is called heterochronic parabiosis, where an old and young mouse are surgically connected to share a circulatory system. In a 2024 study, the same group found that old partners had a less permeable blood-brain barrier and a denser network of capillaries, the smallest vessels. The new study checks which signal in the shared blood is involved in these changes. The authors chose IGF-1, a signaling protein whose level in the blood decreases with age. To respond to it, the protein must enter the shared circulation, and the inner lining of the vessel, the endothelium, must receive the signal through the IGF-1R receptor. The researchers evaluated the state of the barrier by introducing glowing molecules of different sizes into the blood and observing whether they exited the vessels into the brain tissue, as reported in Nature Aging, July 2026. 🔗 Read original →