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For anyone wondering: > Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is a process that describes the generation of new functional DGCs from adult neural stem cells through t
by ahmedfromtunis 6y ago
For anyone wondering:
> Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is a process that describes the generation of new functional DGCs from adult neural stem cells through the amplification of intermediate progenitors and neuroblasts, as well as the integration of these new neurons into the existing neural circuits.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0036-2#:~:text=Adult%20hippocampal%20neurogenesis%20is%20a,into%20the%20existing%20neural%20circuits https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0036-2#:~:text=Ad....
- Icedcool 6y agoOh, well that clears that up. :)
- kitotik 6y ago:/ Anyone care to ELI5 please?
- pkaye 6y agoSeems like a literal translation would be "creation of neurons in the hippocampus". And the hippocampus is associated with memory and learning.
- globular-toast 6y agoIs it good or bad?
- epmaybe 6y agoFasting -> new brain cells and brain connections in a specific part of the brain. At least that’s the correlation they’re going for
- jmcgough 6y agoI worked in a neurogenesis lab for three years, so my attempt: The cells in our body are continuously replaced throughout our life, with the exception of our brain cells. For many many years we believed that mammals didn't create new brains cells in adulthood. You were born, your brain grew and developed as you became an adult, and then you were done. About 20 years ago we realized that that was mostly true, but small parts of the brain continued to produce neurons through adulthood. This happens in two important parts of the brain: - the hippocampus, which is associated with memory - the olfactory bulb, which is associated with sense of smell (and memories related to it). Humans have a relatively weak sense of smell, and if we create new neurons in the olfactory bulb it's much less than other mammals. The process is convoluted, but small regions of the brain create those new neurons and they migrate through fluid-filled holes in your brain - most die, but a small % survive and incorporate themselves into that brain structure. The key thing to realize is that neurogenesis accounts for a tiny fraction of the neurons in our brain, and yet it's still an important process. So why does adult neurogenesis matter, and what does it do for us? Neurogenesis is tied to our ability to learn and form new memories. So, if it's impaired, our ability to learn is reduced. There are tons of things that impact it - age, sleep levels, exercise, among others. In the lab I worked at, we used to induce a form of brain damage to rats which greatly impaired neurogenesis, then run them through mazes, which they did quite poorly at. We took some of those same brain-damaged rats and had them run in exercise wheels for two weeks, and they were suddenly doing just fine at maze tasks. When we stained and looked at their brain, their neurogenesis rate was back up to (or even above) normal levels. We've known for a long time that exercise is great for your health, and there's a growing body of evidence that the same is true for intermittent fasting. What's interesting is that it's not just good for your overall body health, but both can help keep your brain working optimally by increasing neurogenesis and BDNF (which protects your existing neurons).
- ckemere 6y agoIt's worth noting that there's some controversy about the extent of adult neurogenesis in humans. If it exists it's likely at the scale of a few neurons per day. Whether or not that means that increasing it by fasting is important is unclear.
- jmcgough 6y agoYeah, a 2018 UCSF study was unable to find any adult neurogenesis in humans, so it's still a controversial subject when it comes to humans. Even if we had confidence that adult neurogenesis occurs in humans, we can't really expose humans to a stimuli, kill them and then do a BrdU stain, so it's difficult to know how well any rat study translates over to humans.
- ckemere 6y agoThe early evidence in humans was based on radioisotopes present in the atmosphere after atomic tests. You could diffentiate neurons in people's brains (after they died) if they had been born before the 1940s.
- loco5niner 6y ago>The cells in our body are continuously replaced throughout our life, with the exception of our brain cells. What about teeth?
- brudgers 6y agoIs this a breaking change or backwards compatible?
- hannofcart 6y agoWhat does backwards compatibility mean in this context?
- brudgers 6y agoFor example, will my opinion of Ayn Rand have to change?
- astura 6y agoWhat?
- brudgers 6y agoWill my values change in ways that they are unlikely to change without the changes to my brain? By analogy, drinking alcohol has temporarily affects on my judgement because it affects my brain chemistry and on the whole it makes my judgement worse (although sometimes it has removed unhelpful inhibitions). To me the premise that the possibility of changing my brain through fasting is unquestionably a silver bullet free of tradeoffs is suspect. Or to put it another way, the fact that fasting had a particular effect does not imply that effect is a positive one. Furthermore, hunger is a strong motivation toward behaviors that are ethically suspect in its absence. A full belly is a rung up Maslow’s hierarchy. People who spend their days starving mice at scale have incentives to interpret that starvation in positive ways. It would be hard to rationalize starvation and vivisection otherwise and still consider one’s life choice reasonable and ethical. Hence, I am skeptical of acting in the ways an optimistic interpretation of the report suggests. YMMV.
- valenciarose 6y agoThis is a much more perceptive set of comments than I originally understood them to be. Thank you.