Erythropoietin Found to Boost Higher Brain Functions

Erythropoietin, a human growth factor, improves the sequential learning and memory components of a complex long-term cognitive task, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine (Göttingen, Germany) tested the effects of erythropoietin as manifested in the ability of male mice to learn how to exploit an experimental setup developed to supply them with sugared water. The mice were treated for 3 weeks with erythropoietin (5,000 IU/kg) versus placebo administered intraperitoneally every other day, beginning at postnatal day 28. After termination of treatment, the mice were started on the Five Choice Serial Reaction Time Task, with daily training and testing extending to about three months; over a series of learning stages, the mice were trained to operate the system by poking their noses into holes lit by light emitting diodes (LEDs), rather than into unlit holes, within a certain time limit.

The researchers found that overall, a significantly higher proportion of erythropoietin-treated mice finished the task, reaching the predetermined criteria of adequately reacting to a one second flash light, out of five arbitrarily appearing choices. During acquisition of this capability, and over almost all sequential training phases, learning readouts were superior in the erythropoietin-treated mice. The study was published in the July 8, 2009, edition of the open access journal BMC Biology, a publication of BioMedCentral.

"Treated mice showed superior performance in associative, operant and discriminate learning as well as in the initial training phases. Moreover, erythropoietin-treated mice demonstrated better task adaptation and higher performance stability,” said lead author Hannelore Ehrenreich, M.D., D.V.M. "Further untangling of molecular mechanisms of erythropoietin action on higher cognitive functions may ultimately open new avenues for prevention strategies and therapeutic interventions in neuropsychiatric diseases.”

Erythropoietin is a glycoprotein hormone that controls erythropoiesis, or red blood cell (RBC) production. It is produced by the peritubular capillary endothelial cells in the kidney, and has other known biological functions: for example, erythropoietin plays an important role in the brain's response to neuronal injury, and is also involved in the wound healing process. Erythropoietin has been used for over 20 years to treat patients with anemic conditions, ranging from renal failure to cancer, and has recently received attention for its apparent ability to improve cognitive function in people with schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis.

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