CELL/SPALDING ET ALAbove-ground nuclear bomb tests carried out more than 50 years ago resulted in elevated atmospheric levels of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope (14C), which steadily declined over time. In a study published yesterday (June 7) in Cell, researchers used measurements of 14C concentration in the DNA of brain cells from deceased patients to determine the neurons’ age, and demonstrated that there is substantial adult neurogenesis in the human hippocampus.
“We provide thorough information on the extent of neurogenesis and we show that there is surprisingly large amount,” said study author Jonas Frisén of the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
“It’s a very impressive achievement,” said Gerd Kempermann of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Dresden, who was not involved with the study. “It’s welcome to the field as a long-sought confirmation, but it’s also more, because they model the dynamics” of adult neurogenesis and propose a role for neural turnover in human cognition.
The first direct evidence for adult neurogenesis in humans came in 1998, but the method used—injecting a chemical label that permanently integrates into the DNA of dividing brain cells—is no longer available to researchers due to safety concerns, so the ...
