NEW BRAIN CELLS [ back to What's New ]
For many years it has been a bedrock principal of neuroscience that all 100 billion of our brain cells exist at birth, that the adult human brain cannot grow new cells and that memory works by a rewiring of old brain brain cells rather than by growing new brain cells to record new data.  As of 10/15/99 this is now in question. On that date Princeton neuroscientists Elizabeth Gould and Charles Gross published a study in Science dealing announcing their discovery of the daily growth of new brain cells in the adult macaque monkey brain. Using a chemical tracer, these researchers found a rim-like layer of stem cells over the ventricles deep within the macaques' brain which produced a steady stream of new neurons. The new brain cells migrated up into the cortex at the surface of the brain and established synapses with older cells in the frontal lobes (where personality, planning, decision making and working memory are located) and in the parietal lobes (where visual recognition memory exists). They speculate that this ceaseless train of new brain cells enables the brain to imprint and store new memories in a continuous sequence much like supplying a video camera with fresh video cassettes. If true, then a supply  of healthy neurons may exist for treatment of degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, if they could be channeled to the damages portions of the brain. Since the discovery has not yet been confirmed in human beings, no definite answers are possible now, but an exciting new area of research has been opened up.