When I was a kid, in biology class — before biology in public school was reduced to affirmative studies in radical gender ideology — I remember distinctly learning that brain cells are finite and precious.
Maybe my teacher was behind the times, or maybe that was actually the current consensus in the ’90s.
Either way, times have changed.
The brain is capable of generating new brain cells, and a team of researchers may have discovered the physical mechanics of how to catalyze the process.
Via SciTech Daily:
Some areas of the adult brain contain quiescent, or dormant, neural stem cells that can potentially be reactivated to form new neurons. However, the transition from quiescence to proliferation is still poorly understood. A team led by scientists from the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Lausanne (UNIL) has discovered the importance of cell metabolism in this process and identified how to wake up these neural stem cells and reactivate them. Biologists succeeded in increasing the number of new neurons in the brain of adult and even elderly mice.
Stem cells are best conceptualized as the “master keys” of the body’s natural repair processes. These are nascent cells that have the potential to transform into various specialized cells in the body, such as blood cells, bone cells, or — in the context of this discovery — neurons (brain cells).
The holy grail of anti-aging research is how to direct the development of stem cells into these specialized forms, which have the potential to treat numerous chronic illnesses, including neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
This is the kind of medical research we should be promoting and funding as a society.
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