MYTH BUSTED: Adults DO Grow New Brain Cells

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The Adult brain cells stop growing myth


Since there are still a big number of things we fail to understand about our brain it is somewhat understandable that such theories appear. They turn into myths and thanks to the oh so well documented media everybody thinks that they are true; and such a belief is hard to shatter even when it reffers to something untrue.

This could just be the case here. The fact that after a man has reached adulthood his brain cells stop growing is just not true. Researchers at MIT led by Wei-Chung Allen Lee have showed this. In fact the busting of this myth means proving that adult brain cells, or neurons, are not largely static and that they are able to change their structures in response to new experiences. The study they made showed that the branch-like projections on some neurons, called “dendrites,” were still physically malleable.

They conduct electricity received from other neurons to the parent neuron’s cell body. The changes occurred both incrementally and in short bursts, and involved both growth and shrinkage. The results were surprising. A dendrite was able to double its length in two weeks. In the early years of your life you manufacture an estimated 250,000 neurons per minute and then spend the next few years wiring them together. The myth assumes that plasticity settles down when you reach adulthood.

“The scale of change is much smaller than what goes on during the critical period of development, but the fact that it goes on at all is earth-shattering,”said study co-author Elly Nedivi, a neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

They studied interneurons which were not studied before; these interneurons make up about 20 to 30 percent of the neocortex (the part of your brain responsible for higher functions) and on average, about 14 percent of the interneurons they observed showed structural modifications. So this myth is not true.

http://www.zmescience.com/the-adult-bra ... owing-myth

There are a lot of myths about the brain that keep circulating despite evidence to the contrary. Thank you for providing that information!

Thanks for the information!

I'm glad to hear this.

Good news for Aspies. We can start rewiring our brains a bit and not be delusional for thinking it's possible.

WooT! What a relief...

It could explain, in part, some late-bloomer cases...

Hot stuff!

Gee, I said the same thing a while ago. In fact, the brain has stem cells in it! By some accounts, that is why people have said we only use 10% of our brains. Some say we use LESS than 10%!

http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics4.asp

It's good to hear that science is making these discoveries, it's something I've been wondering about from an Eastern philosophical viewpoint. Like what psychedelic said, I've been thinking about the possible abilities of our minds to change our brains.

jjstar, may I quote your original post to an e-list I belong to, shivakalpa@yahoogroups? We are a group of spiritually oriented folk, many of whom have some "differences", and naturally some are the parents of autistic children. I'm an adult aspie myself, born the same year Asperger released his report.

Thanks

I think the myth stems from the fact that the brain cannot actually regenerate lost cells or create new cells. You will never have more brain cells than you started with. Once your spinal cord is severed, it will not grow back. Once neurons are destroyed due to disease, they will not grow back. Interestingly enough, neurons outside the CNS are capable of regenerating axons, whereas those inside are not.

Because I don't think this is anything new.....it is taught in every physiology class across the country. The ablility of the brain to change with life experiences is called "neuroplasticity". For example, learning a new language creates new connections, and doing lots of drugs destroys connections. It is also a "use it or lose it" kind of thing. If you don't challenge your brain to keep up it's connections and make new ones, they will be destroyed.

Wait, so actually the title of this post is inaccurate: adults do NOT grow new brain cells. The cells they already have are plastic and can grow new connections. Except not axons....those cannot be regrown.

The idea of neurons growing is one that has been around for perhaps centuries. The one about stem cells has been officially recognized for less than 20 years. Although it does NOT grow new nerves for like muscles, etc... It grows new neurons for processing. They are in the head, and stay there, but they change into what is needed.

JJStar great post! Theres hope for my brain yippee!!

John - it's written by another - see the link.

It should be ok with the link intact.