Brain & Neurogenesis

Brain & Neurogenesis

The purpose of the present essay represents a brief excursion into the fascinating world of neuroscience, the branch of biology specific to the brain. For instance, memory is a topic often explored in both neuroscience and psychology. To illustrate, skills, such as drawing, fall under the category of implicit memory. Contrary to popular belief, most of the brain is active at all times. The Milky Way galaxy contains two to six times as many stars as the brain does neurons. Further, lesion studies have shed considerable light on diverse neuroscience subjects. As such, an important topic in neuroscience is neurogenesis, or cell repair and regrowth (neurogenesis refers to new cell growth). While the process differs between the Central Nervous System (CNS) and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), generally in the CNS (which comprises the brain and spinal cord) cells fail to regenerate.

Brain & Neurogenesis. Photo by Megan (Elena)

Along these lines, neurodegeneration is the exact opposite, with many neurodegenerative disorders documented in the literature (including Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis and various forms of dementia). Also, from biology, neurobiology and cell biology, one knows that there are internal cell mechanisms that cause it to undergo apoptosis in certain (traumatic) cases. For example, the process is triggered in auditory receptors (hair cells, cilia) in response to very loud noises. Thus, the old joke of a person going deaf after listening to too much loud music may have some background after all, although ranges are typically quoted as above 90 decibels.

Fan & Fan (2006) explored the neuroregenerative process in Huntington’s disease (HD). The authors attest that precursor cells may start the process. Furthermore, exploring the neurogenic mechanisms in mice, they noticed that NSCs (Neural Stem Cells) exhibit enhanced self-renewal potential shortly after the onset of HD. Further, the capability is inherited by subsequent cell generations, suggesting epigenetic changes. Enciu et al. (2011) likewise look at the mechanism by which neurons come back to life after significant trauma. Thus, as hinted at above, they confirm that neuroregeneration takes place with the proliferation of endogenous, or implantation of exogenous NSCs, which in turn differentiate and successfully adapt. What’s more, the researchers explain that neuroregeneration may be perceived as a neulogism, involving all the following events: neuroplasticity, neurogenesis and brain cell regeneration; and this concludes the essay.