Can blood from young people recharge the brain and help people with Alzheimer's? Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have conducted a series of studies that show young blood may contain compounds that help give the brains of Alzheimer's victims a boost.

A 2014 study found that when old mice were given infusions of blood plasma from young mice, they performed better on maze experiments and also grew more nerve cells in their brains when compared to mice given older blood. "It was as if these old brains were recharged by young blood," said Tony Wyss-Coray, professor of neurology and neurological sciences.

The experiment wasn't complicated and didn't involve cutting-edge techniques. "This could have been done 20 years ago," said Wyss-Coray. "You don't need to know anything about how the brain works. You just give an old mouse young blood and see if the animal is smarter than before. It's just that nobody did it."

Now, researchers want to know if the same technique will work on people.

"The possibility that one or many proteins in young human blood can rejuvenate a diversity of organs [including the brain] is a tantalizing one that should spur further research," Wyss-Coray and colleagues wrote in the journal JAMA Neurology.

The researchers theorize that chemicals in the blood, including hormone and growth factors, which are present in larger amounts in younger blood, may account for some of the revitalizing results.

A study of patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's is underway to see if blood transfusions from young donors will help repair their brains.

If the transfusions work, Wyss-Coray sees a problem in the future of getting enough blood to make it a reliable therapy for the large numbers of people with Alzheimer's.

"It would be great if we could identify several factors that we could boost in older people," he told the Washington Post. "Then we might be able to make a drug that does the same thing. We also want to know what organ in the body produces these factors. If we knew that, maybe we could stimulate that tissue in older people."