Scientists believe head injures can cause dormant ‘zombie’ viruses in your brain, such as herpes, to reanimate and cause issues that cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
Scientist believe that virus’ can linger in your body forever and cause dementia like issues after head injuries(Image: Getty Images)
Scientists have found that hitting your head could reawaken dormant viruses, like herpes, in the brain that could increase the risk of dementia.
Head injuries, ranging from repeated minor injuries to serious concussions, can awaken slumbering dormant viruses in the brain. These revived “zombie viruses” can have serious side effects that could cause a chain reaction such as memory loss, cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
A study published in Science Signalling earlier this week, by researchers from Oxford’s Institute of Population Aging, the University of Manchester and Tufts University, tested this theory with the herpes virus, HSV-1.
‘Zombie brain herpes’ can lay dormant in your body for your entire life(Image: Getty Images)
While most people will hear “herpes” and immediately think of the STI known as genital herpes, the term actually refers to a wider group of viruses.
Herpes, or to use the virus’s formal name, Herpesviruses, refers to a broader group of viruses, that include chicken pox and mono and of course, genital Herpes.
The researchers used freaky small 3D bioengineered human brain tissue models or so “mini-brains.”
The team subjected these freaky model mini-brains to “severe injuries” similar to concussions. This was to see if the trauma would prompt the mini-brains infected with dormant HSV-1 would result in the virus reanimating from its slumber.
Their study showed that even mild repeated trauma caused their dormant viruses to reawaken and increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and cognitive decline.
‘Understanding both the risk factors for dementia and Alzheimer’s, and the mechanism by which they develop, is important in being able to target treatment and prevention'(Image: Getty Images/Image Source)
Earlier research by one of the authors of the study, Professor Ruth Itzhaki, a Professional Fellow, at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, found that HSV-1 is present in the human brain in a higher proportion amongst older people
To put her research bluntly, the evidence suggests the older you are the more likely you are to have a higher proportion of herpes lying dormant inside your noggin. If such “brain herpes” were not off-putting enough, HSV-1 can lie dormant in human cells for a lifetime and it has been the first microbe to be definitively identified in the human brain.
Professor Ruth Itzhaki said: “Understanding both the risk factors for dementia and Alzheimer’s, and the mechanism by which they develop, is important in being able to target treatment and prevention.”
Despite how eerie the concept of “zombie brain herpes” is, scientists affirm that the more we understand the phenomenon the better we will be able to tackle and prevent conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.