Old brains still make neurons, study finds

Old brains still make neurons, study finds

Sharon Begley

In response, Shawn Sorrells, a lead author of the 2018 study failing to find adult neurogenesis, told STAT that although the new study “contains valuable data,” he and his co-authors did not find its evidence for ongoing neurogenesis “convincing.” Accurately identifying new neurons “is a complicated endeavor requiring multiple lines of evidence to rule out alternative explanations, none of which are presented in this study,” said Sorrells, now at the University of Pittsburgh.

He believes that what the Madrid scientists took to be new neurons “are actually a distinct set of mature hippocampal neurons that have been there since childhood.” The supposed new ones have a size and shape more like that of mature neurons, Sorrells added.

The Madrid group disagrees. And their analysis meshes with the more widely held view that healthy, adult brains produce new neurons, but at a rate that declines with age.