Parents: Your brain is growing too!
In the midst of hurrying to help our children grow healthy, it’s all too easy to ignore our own health. However, the overwhelming evidence shows that new neurons continue to grow in adulthood, particularly in the hippocampus. An article, “Brain Gain” in The Scientist, goes into more fascinating depth.
New neurons grow in humans, but this fact and the mechanism by which new neurons (a process called neurogenesis) emerge, was only confirmed as recently as 1998. The story of discovering this adult neurogenesis involves collaboration between Swedish and US universities and tracking radiation from atomic bombs.
These discoveries suggest many more areas of research, and many more lessons to learn. We don’t know all the impacts that these new neurons do and don’t have on the brain. We don’t know if we can create more new neurons. For now, we know it’s never too late to learn about your brain, and to change it.