According to this recent study, older people produce new brain cells at the same rate as teenagers do, which contradicts the conventional wisdom that neurons stop being produced after adolescence.
This research indicates that both genders keep on creating new neurons throughout their lives when they are in good health thus it might show that old people are more mentally intact and emotionally than what was previously believed.
For many years it has been thought that adult brains were rigid and incapable of generating more cells. Nevertheless, a recent study by scientists from Columbia University has demonstrated that even elderly people produce hippocampal neurons—a region critical for cognition, memory and emotion—as much as young adults do.
The project involved twenty eight individuals who had been healthy but died abruptly between the ages of 14-79. “We have found out that older adults have a similar potentiality of producing thousands of new hippocampal neurons from progenitor cells just like younger persons,” said Maura Boldrini,” she states further that there’s no difference in size among age groups.”
However, this assumption was contradicted in the Columbia University study that discovered there were as many newly formed neurons in the brains of older people as younger ones. Nevertheless, Brain cells had less blood vessels and connections among them in aged subjects than in young ones according to Boldrini who suggested that this “might be related to a decline in cognitive-emotional resilience” in old people.
These findings are likely to generate heated debate within the scientific community, were published recently on Cell Stem Cell. There is also another report from the University of California which stated that adults do not make new neurons.
On the other hand, authors Shawn Sorrells and Mercedes Paredes said, “This latest research does not conflict with our results.” If neurogenesis actually happens in adult human hippocampus then it is likely to be an exceptionally rare occurrence.”
Nevertheless, some scientists were hopeful about these Columbia University findings arguing that they could lead into novel therapies for neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.
