Stimulating Nerve Cell Growth
In infant mice, an enriched environment of toys, high-quality food, games, and other stimuli increases nerve cell growth and branching in the brain. Compared to normally caged mice living a spartan existence, mice exposed to barely two months of this enriched environment show a 15 percent increase in the number of brain nerve cells.
You know that in children, intensive education accompanied by strong nurturing and healthy social stimulation often leads to outstanding academic and subsequent professional success. It is as if these enviromental factors are the cognitive enhancers, the promemory agents, of childhood. But can a similar approach be used to boost memory in older people, whose nerve cells have largely lost the ability to reproduce?
Substances that stimulate the growth and branching of existing nerve cells, without necessarily increasing their number through a reproductive process, may enhance cognitive abilities. For example, infusing a naturally occurring substance called nerve growth factor into mice increases neuronal branching and improves connectivity among brain cells. These ideas are still in animal experimentation, but clinical trials are likely to begin with one or more neurotrophic compounds in
the near future.
Pluripotent Nerve Cells: A Neuroscience Controversy
A healthy diet, regular exercise, and intellectual and social stimulation are clearly beneficial to brain function. There is a molecular basis to the effects of these types of environmental stimulation in the brain. Although most nerve cells in an older person’s brain have indeed lost the ability to reproduce, there are a few primitive cells, called pluripotent cells, that retain the capacity to differentiate or evolve into several types of nerve cells at any time during the life span, including old age. While these cells are small in number, they can still play an important restorative role after injury or damage or the aging process itself. Some of these pluripotent neural cells appear to be present in the hippocampus, and stimulating them to differentiate and reproduce may prove to be an excellent promemory strategy. As a matter of fact, a few drug companies are trying to develop neurotrophic compounds that can stimulate these primitive, pluripotent cells to differentiate and grow into functioning nerve cells in the brain.
Basic research on pluripotent nerve cells has been very limited, and some scientists question if they even exist in the adult human brain.
Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power
