Princeton's Jacobs found that activating serotonin receptors in the (animal) brain aided in neurogenesis.
Neurogenesis is a wonderful word that means our brains continue to grow new neurons throughout our lifetimes.
FORBES: The Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Stories of 2012
In 2000 Yale's Ronald Duman found that numerous antidepressants, as well as therapies such as electroshock, boost neurogenesis.
Animal studies have shown that stress damages brain cells to the point where it can inhibit neurogenesis (the growth of new brain cells).
Dr. Seth Blackshaw, the lead researcher, comments that hypothalamic neurogenesis may be a mechanism that evolved to help wild animals survive and probably also our ancestors.
FORBES: The Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Stories of 2012
Imaging studies on depressed humans show shrinkage in their hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning, memory and emotion that is also a region where much neurogenesis occurs.
With time, neuroscience research uncovered two parts of the brain that evidence neurogenesis: the hippocampus, associated with memory formation, and the olfactory bulb, associated with the sense of smell.
FORBES: The Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Stories of 2012
But when they became adults, the mice fed a high fat diet showed four times the neurogenesis of the normal mice, and gained significantly more weight and had much higher fat mass.
FORBES: The Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Stories of 2012
Now, a study has uncovered a third part of the brain that, at least in mice, shows positive signs of neurogenesis: the hypothalamus, associated with body temperature, metabolism, sleep, hunger, thirst and a few other critical functions.
FORBES: The Top 10 Brain Science and Psychology Stories of 2012
The findings could have promising implications for diseases that involve a neurogenesis deficit -- in other words, a lack of new brain cells being born -- which happens in conditions such as depression, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, the authors said.
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