Getting A Buzz Now & Then Maybe Good For The Brain Part 2

Old Brains

The rats that were tested in this research are considered senior citizens by the time they are more than 20 months old. Under normal circumstances, beyond that age, their ability to learn and remember things like how to negotiate mazes begins to slip. But resveratrol helped their learning abilities stay sharper.

"The results of the study were striking," says researcher Ashok K. Shetty. "They indicated that for the control rats who did not receive resveratrol, spatial learning ability was largely maintained but ability to make new spatial memories significantly declined between 22 and 25 months. By contrast, both spatial learning and memory improved in the resveratrol-treated rats."

Ancient Response

Ironically, while stress in your daily life is considered detrimental to your health, a significant way resveratrol can improve the health of individual cells is by inducing an ancient stress response on a cellular level.

"This stress response represents a layer of biology that has been largely overlooked, and resveratrol turns out to activate it at much lower concentrations than those used in prior studies," says researcher Paul Schimmel, who is with the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute.

According to Schmimel and his colleagues, resveratrol latches on to a protein in the cell nucleus called PARP-1, a substance that takes part in stress responses and increases life expectancy by helping to repair DNA. By activating PARP-1, resveratrol sets off a chain reaction of DNA-protection in each cell.ⁱⁱ

And you don't need to consume much resveratrol to enjoy its benefits. As a matter of fact, the Scripps scientists think it is better not to get too much.

"Based on these results, it is conceivable that moderate consumption of a couple glasses of red wine (rich in resveratrol) would give a person enough resveratrol to evoke a protective effect via this pathway," says researcher Mathew Sajish.