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- The new cells were born in the part of the brain called the dentate gyrus. It is a part of the hippocampus which plays a central role in learning, memory, mood and emotion. The gradual reduction in new brain cells appeared to go hand-in-hand with the cognitive decline that comes with old age. It suggests that in middle age about 300 fewer neurons per cubic millimetre are made in the dentate gyrus with each advancing year.
The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, suggests that part of the reason scientists disagree on whether or not adult brains make fresh neurons is that different tests and tissue processing give different results. “In the same brains we can detect lots of immature neurons or no immature neurons depending on the processing of the tissue,” said Llorens-Martin.
I was happy to see this after the paper last year concluding the opposite. IIRC methods in the previous paper were only histological, which are fraught with false positives and negatives. It'd be nearly conclusive if some terminal patients could take BrdU for a few months, then donate their brains for examination.