{"id":13958,"date":"2026-02-26T12:51:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/?p=13958"},"modified":"2026-02-26T13:06:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:06:31","slug":"nature-study-the-human-brain-does-not-stop-producing-neurons-until-the-end-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/nature-study-the-human-brain-does-not-stop-producing-neurons-until-the-end-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature Study: The human brain does not stop producing neurons until the end of life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"2\"><span class=\"\">According to a new study published in the journal <\/span><b class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"2\" data-index-in-node=\"50\">Nature<\/b><span class=\"\">,<\/span><span class=\"\"> the human brain retains the ability to produce neurons even in adulthood.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Scientists have found that the more active this process is,<\/span><span class=\"\"> the better a person&#8217;s memory and cognitive functions remain in old age.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\"><span class=\"\">Researchers examined brain samples from deceased donors,<\/span><span class=\"\"> ranging from young individuals to &#8220;super-agers&#8221; over the age of 80 who possessed exceptional memory during their lifetimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"4\">Key Finding of the Study<\/h3>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\"><span class=\"\">It was revealed that in individuals with healthy minds,<\/span> <b class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"5\" data-index-in-node=\"56\">neurogenesis<\/b><span class=\"\">\u2014the formation of new neurons\u2014remains at a high level.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Although new neurons account for only <\/span><b class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"5\" data-index-in-node=\"161\">0.01%<\/b><span class=\"\"> of the hippocampus (the area responsible for memory),<\/span><span class=\"\"> they play a crucial role.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"6\"><span class=\"\">In contrast,<\/span><span class=\"\"> the number of new neurons was significantly reduced in patients with Alzheimer&#8217;s disease and those with cognitive decline.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Interestingly,<\/span><span class=\"\"> the group of <\/span><b class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"6\" data-index-in-node=\"164\">super-agers<\/b><span class=\"\"> was found to have more progenitor (nascent) neurons than any other group.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"7\">Scientific Debates<\/h3>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"8\"><span class=\"\">For decades,<\/span><span class=\"\"> it was believed that the human brain stopped producing neurons after birth.<\/span><span class=\"\"> In recent years,<\/span><span class=\"\"> new evidence has challenged this long-standing dogma.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"9\"><span class=\"\">The study&#8217;s authors explain that studying this process in the human brain is difficult because it is impossible to conduct the same chemical tests on living humans as those performed on animals.<\/span><span class=\"\"> This time,<\/span><span class=\"\"> scientists utilized cutting-edge methods,<\/span><span class=\"\"> including <\/span><b class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"9\" data-index-in-node=\"258\">RNA sequencing<\/b><span class=\"\"> and <\/span><b class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"9\" data-index-in-node=\"277\">epigenetic markers<\/b><span class=\"\">,<\/span><span class=\"\"> to identify the genetic &#8220;signature&#8221; of the cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"10\">Why is this study important?<\/h3>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"11\"><span class=\"\">If scientists can understand exactly how the brain produces new neurons in old age,<\/span><span class=\"\"> it will pave the way for the development of new medications.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Such drugs could stimulate neurogenesis in patients suffering from memory issues or Alzheimer&#8217;s disease.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"12\"><span class=\"\">The next step is to determine the precise function of these new neurons,<\/span><span class=\"\"> which will require the use of more sensitive imaging technologies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"12\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-00599-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nature<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a new study published in the journal Nature, the human brain retains the ability to produce neurons even in adulthood. Scientists have found that the more active this process is, the better a person&#8217;s memory and cognitive functions remain in old age. Researchers examined brain samples from deceased donors, ranging from young individuals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1631,1594,1587,1657],"tags":[3637,4552],"class_list":["post-13958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-neurology","category-news","category-research","category-science","tag-human-brain","tag-super-agers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13963,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13958\/revisions\/13963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}