autophagy: Surprising insights

[aspergerian13]

medicalxpress.com/news/2020...

Surprising insights into the role of autophagy in neuron.

It appears that autophagy protects neurons in the brain, but for different reasons than previously assumed, as researchers from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) and Charité in Berlin have now shown. When the scientists used a genetic trick to switch off autophagy-mediated cellular waste disposal, instead of detecting protein deposits, as expected, they found elevated levels of the endoplasmic reticulum, a system composed of membrane sacs which acts, among other functions, as a calcium store. This leads to elevated neurotransmitter release and, ultimately, to fatal neuronal hyperexcitability. These fundamentally new findings have now been published in the prestigious journal Neuron.

[park_bear]

So autophagy has more than one role. Surely Lewy bodies also represent a failure of autophagy.

[Xenos in reply to park_bear]

Does it mean that fasting - that lead to multiplication of autophagosomes - could help ?

[park_bear in reply to Xenos]

Makes sense. Might be worth checking on reports of people doing various forms of restricted eating.

[Xenos in reply to park_bear]

- I tried 2 non-consecutive days of water-fasting per week (2x36hrs) with no obvious result.

- also tried intermittent fasting 20 hrs per day (basically, no breakfast, no lunch) for 3 month. This one felt better. I stopped because my neuro opposed it firmly enough.

My guess is that 5 consecutive days of water-fasting along with moderate physical activity once a month would be the best in order to induce efficient autophagy.

Only a guess though....

[MarionP]

Very interesting. Almost as if the cell takes it's power wiring back on itself or doubles itself and thereby shorts out.