Will life extension therapies be able to reverse the effects of Alzheimers and Parkinsons?

Will life extension therapies be able to reverse the effects of Alzheimers and Parkinsons?

Aubrey de Grey (Chairman, Methuselah Foundation) gives expert video advice on: Can the aging process be slowed down or reversed?; Why are mice being used to study rejuvenation technologies?; What is 'Robust Mouse Rejuvenation' RMR? and more...

The brain is, in many ways, the most important tissue to rejuvenate because having a youthful body with an aged and decrepit and demented brain is not really a particularly attractive prospect. But luckily the therapies that we need to apply to the brain are more or less the same as therapies that we need to apply to the rest of the body. Because, after all the brain is made out of the same sort of stuff, it's made out of cells mainly. And the cells are more or less structured in the same way, that is, of course with some differences. So, for example Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the accumulation of junk inside the cells and the accumulation of junk outside the cells and the loss of cells that are not naturally replaced. And all of those three things happen also in other tissues and we have particular proteins and we have particular approaches within the program to actually repair all those types of damage.