The hosts speculate that the RETSAT to ATDR pathway discussed earlier might extend beyond multiple sclerosis to other conditions involving oxygen-deprivation damage in the brain, such as vascular dementia, where damaged blood vessels cause white matter oxygen loss and neurodegeneration. They frame this as a potential platform discovery with multiple applications rather than a single fix, comparing it to CRISPR as an example of one biological unlock enabling many uses. They also note the study was published in the journal Neuron and that the research team is based in China, tying this to a broader discussion of growing competitiveness in Chinese research institutions.
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The hosts explicitly flag vascular dementia as a possible additional application of the RETSAT-ATDR axis, distinct from the MS and prenatal leukomalacia examples covered earlier in the episode.
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They use CRISPR as a named analogy for a single discovery unlocking multiple therapeutic doors.
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They comment on the paper's writing and figures, calling it well constructed from a narrative standpoint.
475 words · auto-generated from the episode video
1:27:08you know um and this is going to be incredible. The last few things I want to touch on is you know where this can where this can help us. One is neonatal white matter injury. So preterm birth is highly associated with massive chronic diffuse white matter injury because when you have extremely low birthw weightight infants, the blood vessels in the brain are incredibly fragile. And so these precursor cells, these stem cells, they're very vulnerable to oxidative stress. And if the blood vessels are not properly in there and now you've exposed this pren preterm infant to the world outside of the womb, you've got this
1:27:50risk factor where you've got severe cognitive delays, lifelong executive dysfunction because these stem cells, these progenitors are not getting enough oxygen. Well, maybe this ATDR ATDR pathway could fundamentally change that, right? Maybe you could take some of this evolutionary pressure that the Yaks have adapted to and make it some kind of therapeutic intervention >> because in this context it the the hypoxic stress literally it's a onetoone mapping. >> Yeah. >> Uh versus when we talked earlier about the MS it's it's there's a few steps away. >> Yeah. There's a few steps away. This one it's like is straight up just hypoxia.
1:28:32The other thing with hypoxia is a type of dementia called vascular dementia and small vessel disease. This happens in um the elderly. Estimated 57 million people live with dementia worldwide. Effectively the blood vessels are getting damaged. And so if the blood vessels are getting damaged, you have oxygen deprivation in your brain. That's going to lead to neuroderadation specifically in the white matter. Well, if you could have some kind of therapeutic rstat ATDR axis drug that mediates the same exact um therapeutic axis that we've been
1:29:13discussing, then perhaps you have some way to slow this decay. That would be so huge. >> Yeah. I I think one of the points that this brings up is the connection we've made by studying these high altitude Tibetan animals has multiple uh impact pathways. We started and referenced MS and some of these prenatal uh issues, >> but to your point, this like vascular dementia and potentially other things we're not even discussing in the scope of this episode >> have some connection points to utilizing this ADT, ADTR, ATDR,
1:29:58neuron, OPC, myelin sheath and other low oxygen regenerative benefit avenues that you know again this is the idea that sometimes discoveries are discreet and have one application and sometimes you have platforms the classic example I always bring up is crisper right uh you have multiple use cases for like one unlock >> um and this could be a key that unlocks >> several doors yeah >> um and another big Another aspect to this story is the
Evolutionary BiologyNeurobiologyPharmacologyRegenerative Medicine