NPR

Sorry, Adults, No New Neurons For Your Aging Brains

The brains of birds and mice continue to produce new nerve cells in the hippocampus throughout life. But research now suggests the human brain stops doing this around adolescence.
A hippocampal neuron seen in culture. Dendrites are green, dendritic spines are red and DNA is blue.

A major study is challenging the widely held view that adult human brains make new neurons.

The study of brain samples from 59 people of various ages found no immature neurons in anyone older than 13, scientists report online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"In all of the adult samples we looked at, we couldn't find any evidence of a young neuron," says at the University of California, San Francisco.

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