Originally published February 2 2006
MIT researcher discovers adult brain cells possess the ability to grow
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Elly Nedivi, the Fred and Carole Middleton Assistant Professor of Neurobiology at MIT, has co-authored a study that revises earlier understanding of adult brain cells, as it claims that neurons in mature brains do exhibit growth.
Despite the prevailing belief that adult brain cells don't grow, a researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory reports in the Dec. 27 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology that structural remodeling of neurons does in fact occur in mature brains.
This finding means that it may one day be possible to grow new cells to replace ones damaged by disease or spinal cord injury, such as the one that paralyzed the late actor Christopher Reeve.
"Knowing that neurons are able to grow in the adult brain gives us a chance to enhance the process and explore under what conditions -- genetic, sensory or other -- we can make that happen," said study co-author Elly Nedivi, the Fred and Carole Middleton Assistant Professor of Neurobiology.
While scientists have focused mostly on trying to regenerate the long axons damaged in spinal cord injuries, the new finding suggests targeting a different part of the cell: the dendrite.
"We do see relatively large-scale growth" in the dendrites, Nedivi said.
With the help of technology similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but at a much finer, cellular resolution, the researchers were able to stitch together two-dimensional slices to create the first 3-D reconstruction of entire neurons in the adult cortex.
Nedivi had previously identified 360 genes regulated by activity in the adult brain that she termed candidate plasticity genes or CPGs.
The neuroscience community has long thought that whatever limited plasticity existed in the adult brain did not involve any structural remodeling, mostly because no such remodeling was ever detected in excitatory cells.
By applying an innovative new imaging technology that allows monitoring of neuronal structural dynamics in the living brain, they found evidence for adult neuronal restructuring in the less-known, less-accessible inhibitory interneurons.
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