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Humans Produce New Brain Cells Throughout Their Lives, Say Researchers (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: 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. Many new neurons are produced in the hippocampus in babies, but it has been a matter of hot debate whether this continues into adulthood -- and if so, whether this rate drops with age as seen in mice and nonhuman primates. Although some research had found new neurons in the hippocampus of older humans, a recent study scotched the idea, claiming that new neurons in the hippocampus were at undetectable levels by our late teens.
Yes, this one contradicts last month's study saying that contrary to previous belief humans do NOT grow new neurons: https://www.npr.org/sections/h...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/07/health/new-brain-cells-adulthood-study/index.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-adult-brain-really-grow-new-neurons/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
From the article:
Dr Mercedes Paredes from the University of California San Francisco, an author of last month’s paper suggesting adults do not develop new neurons, said she was not persuaded. “For now, we do not think this new study challenges what we have concluded from our own recently published observations: if neurogenesis continues in the adult human hippocampus, it is an extremely rare phenomenon,” she said. “It boils down to interpretation of equivocal cells which we took extra steps to characterise extensively and showed not to be new neurons as they first appeared.”
I would also note that this study's subjects were "between 14 and 79" and the previous study stated "only a few isolated young neurons are observed by 7 and 13 years of age". Thus, this new study finding little decline between 14 and 79 could be entirely accurate if the bulk of the decline was over by 14. It is an apples and oranges comparison.
As an aside, I feel that there is a great argument forming for completing secondary education by 14 as we used to. We hurt ourselves by not getting more of our foundation in place during that more biologically capable time period.