Short-term oral rapamycin prevents age-related learning impairment in mice.

Effective treatments to prevent or delay age-related learning impairment are not generally available. In a preliminary preclinical study, mice 20 months of age were fed a diet containing 14 ppm rapamycin, an inhibitor of mTOR, for three months and then tested in a spatial navigation task. Mice fed the nonmedicated control diet showed learning impairment while mice fed the rapamycin diet were not learning impaired. This observation provides support for additional preclinical studies and suggests that short-term rapamycin treatment could be a possible strategy for preventing or delaying age-related cognitive impairment in people.
Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest: Warren Ladiges is a member of the Editorial Board of Aging Pathobiology and Therapeutics. All authors declare no conflict of interest and were not involved in the journal’s review or desicions related to this manuscript.