Sport als Pille? Cortés über Muskel-Hirn-Signale, Prosaposin und PS18

Could we get the brain benefits of exercise without moving at all? At the DoNotAge.org Conference 2026 in London, Professor Constanza Cortés of the University of Southern California shares her lab's search for "exercise in a pill". A neuroscientist by training, Professor Cortés studies how exercise changes what's in our blood, and how signals released from muscle travel to the brain. In this talk she covers: Exerkines: the signalling molecules our organs release into the bloodstream during and after exercise A mouse model where changing only the muscle tricked it into "thinking" it was exercising, with older mice running further and showing healthier mitochondria The surprise finding: in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, changing the muscle alone reduced tau pathology in the brain Prosaposin, a protein that rises in the blood after exercise in mice, rats and humans PS18, a short peptide derived from prosaposin that triggered exercise-like changes in the brains of young mice without any running A new study in older mice, supported by DoNotAge.org, comparing PS18 with eight weeks of treadmill training across frailty, cognition, metabolic health and body composition The session closes with a plain-English summary from DoNotAge.org founder Alan Graves. Chapters 0:00 Can we put exercise in a pill? 0:54 How exercise supports healthy ageing 1:52 Exerkines: the messengers exercise releases 3:02 From muscle to brain 4:14 A mouse that "thinks" it's exercising 6:06 Changing the muscle, changing the brain 8:02 Is prosaposin exercise-responsive? 10:34 What is prosaposin? 11:48 Testing the PS18 peptide 12:40 The new study in older mice 14:36 Sex differences, exercise type and timing 15:54 Session summary with Alan Graves DoNotAge.org is a Health Research Organisation on a mission to extend the healthy lifespan of as many people as possible. #Longevity #HealthyAgeing #Exercise