Scientists discover that the old brain always produces new cells

Your brain always produces new neurons, even when you're old.

This is an interesting thing. For decades, researchers have believed that the elderly brain does not produce new cells, but a new study has found evidence to convince the opposite. Older brains still produce new cells like young brains.

Dr. Maura Boldrini, Neurobiologist, Columbia University, USA said: 'When I was in medical school, we were taught that the old brain does not produce new cells anymore. However, researchers have recently suspected that assumption. Experiments on mice showed that old mice still produce new neurons. And early human studies have produced similar results. '

The production of new cells greatly decreases when entering adolescence

Research by Dr. Boldrini and colleagues is the first to closely monitor the cell production of the brain of a normal person. They explored the brains of 28 healthy bodies, aged between 14 and 79. All of them have complete records and information. (Of course 'healthy' here is just a relative term. Their brains are dead, but their records show that they have no significant health problems, they are not addicts, no. must take antidepressants - drugs that promote cell growth.)

Under a microscope, Dr. Boldrini and his colleagues cut the seahorses (part of the frontal brain, which is important for the ability to store information and form long-term memory) and count the number of cells. newly formed, that is, cells that are not fully developed.

Experimenting this on mice is easy, because of the small mouse brain. Just cut out, observe the cells and count. But the human brain is much bigger and more complicated, so this turns out to be difficult. Dr. Boldrini's group had to use special computer software to count the number of cells after observing through a microscope.

The old brains are not constant, they have more new cells like young brains, but it seems to produce fewer new blood vessels and the interconnection of cells also occurs more slowly.

Here, it is important to remember that scientific research on the formation of brain cells of the elderly is still very primitive. On March 7, 2018, an article published in the journal 'Nature' also denied the idea that old brains continue to produce new neurons. The authors said that by studying some sick and healthy brains, they found that the production of new cells greatly decreased when they entered adolescence, and did not record the cells. New neurons in adult brains.

Dr. Boldrini said that the difference between the results of the journal 'Nature' and the results of her group is due to experiments on different target groups and using different experimental methods. The brains of the other study are of many people with different health conditions, including seizures; and the techniques for preserving the brains of the two applied groups are also different. These techniques can damage the evidence of new cells.

Because all the brains in Dr. Boldrini's research are healthy and produce new cells, she and her colleagues believe that the ability to continue to produce new cells in the brain of seahorses. may be the main trait of brains still healthy when they are old.