Tomorrow is Today

Researchers Have Discovered the Mechanism That Controls Muscle Growth and Repair

While the study is focused on addressing the problems of the elderly, it is easy to imagine that expected anti-aging stem cell therapies could also be re-purposed for human enhancement in the young and healthy.

The study looked at stem cells found inside muscle — which are responsible for repairing injury — to find out why the ability of muscles to regenerate declines with age.

A dormant reservoir of stem cells is present inside every muscle, ready to be activated by exercise and injury to repair any damage. When needed, these cells divide into hundreds of new muscle fibers that repair the muscle. At the end of the repairing process, some of these cells also replenish the pool of dormant stem cells so that the muscle retains the ability to repair itself again and again.

The researchers carried out a study on old mice and found the number of dormant stem cells present in the pool reduces with age, which could explain the decline in the muscle’s ability to repair and regenerate as it gets older.

(via Making old muscles young again | KurzweilAI)