"Easter Island Drug," Bee Nursing Hold Antiaging Secrets?
New job makes old bees "intelligent again," while exotic drug extends mouse lives.
A honeybee inspects royal jelly.
A honeybee looks into a cell filled with royal jelly, secreted by young bees for larvae.
Photograph by Eric Tourneret, Visuals Unlimited
Kastalia Medrano
for National Geographic News
Published July 10, 2012
Two recent animal discoveries may someday help humans lead longer, better lives.
One study shows that aging honeybees can regain the brainpower of youth. In the other, a so-called Easter Island drug enhanced the memories of laboratory mice.
(See more health news.)
The bee study, published in May by the journal Experimental Gerontology, looked at the different capabilities of young and old members in a colony.
Researchers removed the young, "nurser" bees from the hive. Older bees—which exhibit "age-associated learning deficits" toward the end of their six-week life expectancy—took on the nursing responsibilities they had fulfilled earlier in life, for example secreting "royal jelly" for larvae.
Study leader Nicholas Baker of the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences reported that many of the older bees "were performing as well as the young nurser bees had. We were like, They're intelligent again! So what happened?"
But not all of the older bees were competent nurses.
Analyzing the "intelligent again" bees and the poorer-performing ones, the researchers found higher levels of the protein glutamate in brains of the bees the experiment was successful on. In humans, moderate levels of glutamate can be helpful for memory and learning, although too much can harm higher cognitive functions.
The study concluded that glutamate can rebuild bee brain cells—and that the old bees lived longer than they would have otherwise after resuming their nursing duties.
That's good news for bees, and perhaps for people, too.
"With people, you can't reverse that clock," Baker said. "But this does show that social contact, and taking on new activities, building new brain connections, delays the bad effects of aging."
The study could lead to other benefits.
By studying the protein changes in the honeybee brains, scientists hope to design drugs that could help fight off the decreased brain function associated with aging.
It could take 30 years before such drugs are ready, Baker said. In the meantime, he advises older people to tackle fresh challenges as a way to stay young.