Monday, 17 December 2012
Neurogenesis and Depression
The processes leading to the many different illnesses that can affect people’s psychic equilibrium are still hotly debated. Often, these processes involve multiple contributing factors which is why there are so many different hypotheses about them. In the case of depression, for example, one of the best known is the monoamine hypothesis, which associates the disease with underactivity of certain neurotransmitters. such as serotonin.
Several research laboratories are now working on a more recent hypothesis about the cause of depression, involving a phenomenon that was first confirmed in humans in the late 1990s: neurogenesis, meaning the birth of new neurons in the adult brain. The starting point for this hypothesis is that these young neurons seem to show greater plasticity and are found only in certain parts of the brain, such as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, that are associated with emotions. (more…)
Memory and the Brain, Mental Disorders | 1 comment
Monday, 25 June 2012
A Whole Hippocampus Reveals Its Secrets
Some major scientific discoveries are the result not so much of a particular experiment as of the lengthy efforts to develop the protocol used in it. Such was the case for a study that Sylvain Williams published in Nature Neuroscience in November 2009. Williams and his team had worked for years to refine the method used in this study to record neuronal activity in a whole rat hippocampus preserved in vitro. (more…)
Memory and the Brain | Comments Closed
