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Ngf

asecin

asecin

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
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1,725
hmmm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerve_growth_factor

how to stimulate this ? it is to protect and create new nerve cells and its founder lives to be 100 and she claims to feel smarter and better than when she was 20.

so... anyone has idea what to do with this so they can regenerate nerve cells in the brain ?
 
It's founder? How does a protein have a founder?

Just reading the wiki, this doesn't have any effect on neurons in the brain, but instead on sympathetic and afferent neurons. The wiki seems to be wrong; I find some articles that deal with NGF's effect on central neurons.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/vl370hw131853tm5/

I don't think it crosses the blood brain barrier, though, so direct supplementation won't work. I don't know that this is the sort of thing people should be using as a nootropic, though. Directly messing around with the growth of neurons seems like a bad idea.
 
yeh but i mean is there possible way to simulate the NGF by means of foods, herbs ??
 
Hammilton said:
It's founder? How does a protein have a founder?
Click to expand...

lol

I would think you'd have to activate the genes that were (for the most part) deactivated in the first stages of life, and hope that cancer or Alzheimer's doesn't ensue. I wouldn't be surprised if suppression of the gene that encodes for adult neurogenesis is a better idea.

Or you could induce a TIA:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1559776

Or spike yourself with cuttlefish DNA:

http://www.mnhn.fr/mnhn/UMR5178/equipe2/projetsuk_eq2.php

I think this is a pet obsession of some people here. Punch neurogenesis into the search engine.
 
Well, Alzheimer's shouldn't be an issue, it has a pretty specific genesis. I've never heard of cancer of nerves. Is such a thing possible? Google turns up a bunch of hits, but nothing that I'm looking for.

I think this is a pet obsession of some people here. Punch neurogenesis into the search engine.
Click to expand...

Yes, along with nootropics and other 'smart drugs'.
 
You can most certainly get cancers of glioblasts, neuroblasts or astrocytes, see glioblastoma, neuroblastoma and astrocytoma.
 
Hammilton said:
Well, Alzheimer's shouldn't be an issue, it has a pretty specific genesis. I've never heard of cancer of nerves. Is such a thing possible? Google turns up a bunch of hits, but nothing that I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

It's not just the cancer that worries me (plenty of mutagenic prevalence in the brain, btw), but also the possibility of prion formation. Usually it's a bad idea to induce unnatural and uninhibited cell division--though this of course doesn't hold for ischemia patients, who are the ones that can really benefit from a neural pro-factor.

The jury's still out on this aspect of Alzheimer's. It's a fact that all Alzheimer's patients exhibit accelerated rates of hippocampal neurogenesis. Whether this is a pathogenic symptom or a regulatory mechanism is uncertain. This paper seems to be pretty insightful (no time to read it now):

http://www.online.karger.com/Produk...e=235803&ProduktNr=227097&filename=118927.pdf

Personally, I shy away from very few drugs, but the idea of a viable pro-NGF, or the protein itself (IM?), puts me off.
 
I remember reading that the mothers of children with autism have higher nerve growth factors in the umbilical blood than the mothers of non-autists. I think you should exercise and meditate if you wanna help grow some connections. You don't need more nerve cells, but thickening up some connections could be helpful.
 
At some point in time there developed an animal that, as an adult, could not readily regenerate its neurons. Somehow this gave the animal an adaptive advantage over its precursor species. This non-nerve-regenerating animal is the common ancestor of a whole host of subsequent species--including homosapiens. Seeing as we seem to be the only species capable of symbolic thought, does it not make sense that lifelong nerve regeneration is a trait we had to outgrow in order to become intelligent? Am I overgeneralizing? Mitosis of the mature human neuron (generally speaking) seems like a cumbersome and obtrusive process, interfering with the work of the nervous system and disabling a neurologically advanced organism's vital processes.

As a corollary, consider that we have one chromosome fewer than chimps, and hundreds of chromosomes fewer than some species of algae. More information-bearing matter does not equate to greater complexity.
 
negrogesic said:
Of course, it won't do anything...
Click to expand...

Of course NGF is not going to make it past the BBB, but I wonder if it couldn't yet have a beneficial peripheral effect or two. Maybe someone would like to try injecting some into his penis to see if it can increase sensitivity? :\ Sounds crazy, but if injecting chocolate or nicotine is a sensible thing in the minds of some... people, why not NGF?


Edit: Forgot to mention: You can buy velvet antler extract over the internet and even certain health food stores. One such extract supposedly contains all of the following:

Nerve growth factor, neurotrophin 3, insulin-like growth factor I & II, transforming growth factor alpha & beta, epidermal growth factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, fibroblast growth factor, bone morphogenetic protein 4, interleukins

There exists the distinct possibility of contracting some form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, though, so one should tread with caution (it's also entirely possible that the supplement contains none or few of the specified ingredients, so that's another point of concern). Although there are no known cases of a human developing creutzfeldt-jakob disease as a result of exposure to elements of the central nervous system of a deer infected with prions, and no known cases of chronic wasting disease in New Zealand (where most velvet antler extract is produced), it's still perhaps something you shouldn't mess around with.
 
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