{"id":617,"date":"2018-04-12T11:31:20","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T09:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=617"},"modified":"2018-04-06T11:32:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T09:32:30","slug":"humans-produce-new-brain-cells-throughout-their-lives-say-researchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=617","title":{"rendered":"Humans produce new brain cells throughout their lives, say researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Humans continue to produce new neurons in a part of their brain involved in learning, memory and emotion throughout adulthood, scientists have revealed, countering previous theories that production stopped after adolescence. The findings could help in developing treatments for neurological conditions such as dementia.<\/p>\n

Many new neurons are produced in the hippocampus in babies, but it has been a matter of hot debate whether this continues into adulthood \u2013 and if so, whether this rate drops with age as seen in mice and nonhuman primates.<\/p>\n

Although some research had found new neurons in the hippocampus of older humans, a recent\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0scotched the idea, claiming that new neurons in the hippocampus were at undetectable levels by our late teens.<\/p>\n

Now another group of scientists have published research that pushes back, revealing the new neurons are produced in this brain region in human adults and does not drop off with age. The findings, they say, could help in the hunt for ways to treat conditions ranging from Alzheimer\u2019s to psychiatric problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exciting part is that the neurons are there throughout a lifetime,\u201d said Dr Maura Boldrini from Columbia University in New York and first author of the new study published in the\u00a0journal Cell Stem Cell<\/a>. \u201cIt seems that indeed humans are different from mice \u2013 where [neuron production] goes down with age really fast \u2013 and this could mean that we need these neurons for our complex learning abilities and cognitive behavioural responses to emotions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Boldrini and colleagues looked at the hippocampus in 28 men and women aged between 14 and 79, collected just hours after they had died. Importantly, Boldrini notes, all of the individuals were healthy before death, unlike in many previous studies.<\/p>\n

Using a number of techniques, the team examined the degree of new blood vessel formation, the volume, and the number of cells of different stages of maturity, in an area known as the dentate gyrus \u2013 the region of the hippocampus where new neurons are produced.<\/p>\n