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Study casts doubt on whether adult brain’s memory-forming region makes new cells

Summary:

Early findings from 54 human brains suggest that adults may stop making neurons in the hippocampus.

The finding is preliminary; but if confirmed, it would overturn the widely that in people, the memory-related hippocampus constantly churns out new neurons in adulthood.

Link:

No new nerve cells. Hippocampal nerve cell axons are shown in
blue, and glial cells are green. All cells' nuclei are stained in red.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/study-casts-doubt-whether-adult-brain-hippocampus-makes-new-cells?mode=topic&context=69&tgt=nr

Publication date:

NOVEMBER 16, 2017

Scientific field:

Neuroscience

Glossary:

Aging: the process of growing old.

Churn out: produce; generate.

Elude: evade.

Overturn: abolish, invalidate, or reverse (a previous system, decision, situation, etc.).

Scrutinizing: examine or inspect closely and thoroughly.

Spanning: suffer extend from side to side of.

Stark: severe or bare in appearance or outline.

Widely: over a large area or range; extensively.

Wiring: a system of wires.

Analysis comment:

This article explains the early findings after scrutinizing 54 human brains spanning the age spectrum suggest that adults don’t produce new nerve cells in brain area important to memory and navigation.

It explains too that the finding is preliminary; but if it’s confirmed, it would overturn the widely accepted and potentially powerful idea that in people, the memory-related hippocampus constantly churns out new neurons in adulthood.

On the one hand, it explains that as expected, fetal and infant samples showed evidence of both dividing cells that give rise to new neurons and young neurons themselves in the hippocampus. But with age, these numbers declined.

That absence of young hippocampal neurons conflicts with some earlier research.

A definitive answer has eluded scientists in part because there’s no easy way to study these cells in living people. Several of the earlier studies relied on unusual circumstances to spot cells born in adulthood.

On the other hand, it explains that experts say that the preliminary study is not the last word. In the meantime, the body of evidence in favor of human neurogenesis in the hippocampus is quite strong.

To conclude, this article is a success for the neuroscience. Because thanks to this discovery, it would overturn the widely accepted and potentially powerful idea that in people, the memory-related hippocampus constantly churns out new neurons in adulthood.

And if new memories come from expanded previous memories, then it may not be new cells that we need to be looking for but new neutral inter-connections (expanded wiring). This would suggest that to delay aging, rather than learn a completely new language, we need to review what we previous learned but perhaps at a higher level.