Older people & new brain cell production

Older people & new brain cell production

ViestiKirjoittaja Hilppa » 18.04.2018 10:31

Older People Can Still Produce New Brain Cells, Study Shows
Victoria Foster CONTRIBUTOR
It has been a hot topic of debate in neuroscience as to whether human brains can continue to produce new cells throughout life and new research published today suggests that older brains are just as capable of producing these cells as younger ones.

The research published today in the journal Cell Stem Cell, led by scientists at Columbia University suggests that many senior citizens may remain more cognitively and emotionally intact than commonly accepted, with the research finding that even the oldest brains studied, produced new cells.

The researchers analyzed an area of the brain called the hippocampus from the autopsies of 28 people aged 14-79 who died suddenly, but had been previously healthy and not on any medication which might affect their brains, a key difference from previous studies on the topic.


Maura Boldrini, Associate Professor of neurobiology at Columbia University and lead author of the study said: "We found that older people have similar ability to make thousands of hippocampal new neurons from progenitor cells as younger people do. We also found equivalent volumes of the hippocampus across ages.”

The hippocampus is a brain structure intrinsically linked to learning, memory formation and emotional processing and studies in non-human primates and rodents have previously indicated that the ability to generate new neurons in this region declines with age. The new research suggests that this is not the case in humans.

However, a greater number of neurons does not necessarily correlate with increased brain function, with the research also showing that the brains of older individuals had fewer new blood vessels in this area of the brain, which the researchers speculate may affect the ability of these neurons to make connections. Older people also had a smaller pool of neural stem cells-cells which can eventually develop to become fully-fledged neurons-in a particular area of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, an area involved with memory formation.

"It is possible that ongoing hippocampal neurogenesis sustains human-specific cognitive function throughout life and that declines may be linked to compromised cognitive-emotional resilience," said Boldrini, who hopes her research will contribute to further investigation of age-related conditions such as Alzheimer's.

However the new study is likely to prove controversial to some members of the scientific community as it directly contradicts research published in Nature just last month by scientists at the University of California, which unequivocally states that the level of new neuron production in adults is ‘undetectable,’ with the researchers unable to find barely any new neuron production at all in humans over the age of 13 and none by late-teenage years. This finding was met with well-documented skepticism and resulted in a counter-punch article by the California-based researchers, leading to a lot of scientific ambiguity.

In summary, the jury is still out and this new research will certainly do nothing to quell the debate about whether older individuals can indeed grow new neurons.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriafo ... 038129fa0b
Hilppa
 

Re: Older people & new brain cell production

ViestiKirjoittaja Hilppa » 18.04.2018 10:38

Alkuperäisartikkeli:
Human Hippocampal Neurogenesis Persists throughout Aging
Maura Boldrini, Camille A. Fulmore, Alexandria N. Tartt, Laika R. Simeon, Ina Pavlova, Verica Poposka, Gorazd B. Rosoklija, Aleksandar Stankov, Victoria Arango, Andrew J. Dwork, René Hen, J. John Mann

Summary
Adult hippocampal neurogenesis declines in aging rodents and primates. Aging humans are thought to exhibit waning neurogenesis and exercise-induced angiogenesis, with a resulting volumetric decrease in the neurogenic hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) region, although concurrent changes in these parameters are not well studied. Here we assessed whole autopsy hippocampi from healthy human individuals ranging from 14 to 79 years of age. We found similar numbers of intermediate neural progenitors and thousands of immature neurons in the DG, comparable numbers of glia and mature granule neurons, and equivalent DG volume across ages. Nevertheless, older individuals have less angiogenesis and neuroplasticity and a smaller quiescent progenitor pool in anterior-mid DG, with no changes in posterior DG. Thus, healthy older subjects without cognitive impairment, neuropsychiatric disease, or treatment display preserved neurogenesis. It is possible that ongoing hippocampal neurogenesis sustains human-specific cognitive function throughout life and that declines may be linked to compromised cognitive-emotional resilience.

http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/full ... 34-5909(18)30121-8
(Valitettavasti suoralinkin kopiointi ei onnistunut.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29625071
Hilppa
 


Paluu Psykologiaa ja psykopatologiaa



Paikallaolijat

Käyttäjiä lukemassa tätä aluetta: Ei rekisteröityneitä käyttäjiä ja 10 vierailijaa