Cover Image: September 2001 Scientific American Magazine See Inside

Young Cells in Old Brains [Preview]

The paradigm-shifting conclusion that adult brains can grow new neurons owes a lot to Elizabeth Gould's rats and monkeys

By Marguerite Holloway















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ELIZABETH GOULD: CHANGING MINDS " data-pin-do="buttonBookmark">

ELIZABETH GOULD: CHANGING MINDS

  • Past thinking: Memories are stored by locked-in neural connections. Present: The brain can add neurons, perhaps to establish new memories.
  • Hope for dementia: New neurons seem able to migrate, suggesting that therapeutic cells can be guided to areas damaged by disease or injury.
  • Use it or lose it: In lab animals not kept in a stimulating cognitive environment, "most new neurons will die within a few weeks."
Image: PETER MURPHY

PRINCETON, N.J.--Reunion weekend at Princeton University, and the shady Gothic campus has been inundated by spring showers and men in

boaters and natty orange seersucker jackets. Tents and small groups of murmuring alumni dot the courtyards. Everything proper, seemingly in its place. In


This article was originally published with the title Young Cells in Old Brains.



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