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takyon writes:

Study questions whether adults can really make new neurons

Over the past 20 years, evidence that adult humans can produce hundreds of new neurons per day has fueled hope that ramping up cell birth could be therapeutic. Boosting neurogenesis, researchers speculate, might prevent or treat depression, Alzheimer's disease, and other brain disorders. But a controversial study in Nature this week threatens to dash such hopes by suggesting that the production of neurons declines sharply after early development and grinds to a halt by adulthood.

The results of the "exhaustive search" for new neurons in adult human and monkey brains "will disappoint many," says neuroscientist Paul Frankland of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. "It raises concern that levels of neurogenesis are too low to be functionally important" in humans, adds another observer, René Hen, a neuroscientist at Columbia University. But he and others suggest that the study left much room for error. The way the tissue was handled, the deceased patients' psychiatric history, or whether they had brain inflammation could all explain why the researchers failed to confirm earlier, encouraging studies, Hen says.

Also at STAT News.

Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops sharply in children to undetectable levels in adults (DOI: 10.1038/nature25975) (DX)

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