via MIT News Office

Picower researcher finds neuron growth in adult brain

Despite the prevailing belief that adult brain cells don’t grow, a researcher at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory reports in the Dec. 27 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology that structural remodeling of neurons does in fact occur in mature brains…

…With the help of technology similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but at a much finer, cellular resolution, the researchers were able to stitch together two-dimensional slices to create the first 3-D reconstruction of entire neurons in the adult cortex. Dendritic branch tips were measured over weeks to evaluate physical changes.

What the researchers saw amazed them.

In 3-D time-lapse images, the brain cells look like plants sprouting together. Some push out tentative tendrils that grow around, or retract from contact with, neighboring cells…