Is it true that brain cells don’t regenerate? If this is true, and I lived to be a couple of hundred years old, would I just have an empty cavity inside my head (although this may already be the case.) This question hypothetically assumes that A, I could live for a couple of hundred years and B, I could survive without a brain. I know I’m opening myself up to an ass-whooping here, but I was just curious.
The theory used to be that brain cells do not regenerate, I believe. Just in the past week, though, I remember seeing something to the effect of a counterexample to this theory, so now they’re rethinking it. (Sorry, don’t remember the details).
Yeah…in “Time” magazine. Experiments on animals, sheep, I think, showed the growth of new brain cells.
No evidence of it in humans so far but, as I understand it, they only studied Republicans.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delictorum Votis
I think the theory of non-regenerating brain cells is proportionately based theory of “killing brains” by some sort of damage, i.e. drugs and alcohol, trauma to the head etc. I would assume ( and am working on limited brain cells byself due to the former ) that if your brain cells slowly died due to longevity, there are so many that gradually you would begin to use the ones in the parts of the brain that is not currently used. If you lived for an eternity maybe you would eventually use them up, but then again maybe that’s why we don’t live for an eternity.
One must learn by doing things; for though you think you know it you have no certainty until you try.
–Sophacles
WIGGUM:
Curiosity killed a cat in far less that 200 years.
Ursula:
I wouldn’t disbelieve the first part of your post; but as to the last, drugs or not, we’ve all be using all used brain cells (neurons) from early on. Despite those myths about using only a tenth of your brain, we do use the whole works, all the time, to varying degrees. If it’s true that we keep regenerating a few such cells, I’m sure they are immediately put into service as they ripen.
OTOH, all our cells replicate themselves only a finite number of times, so don’t buy any insurance based on an infinite lifetime. Non-regeneration of CNS neurons doesn’t have anything to do with how fast they’re killed or by what. Whatever’s in your braincage at 120, don’t invest in anything that matures only after 5 years.
Ray (not enough left ta figger out howta get my regenerator started)
Quote:
I think the theory of non-regenerating brain cells is proportionately based theory of “killing brains” by some sort of damage, i.e. drugs and alcohol, trauma to the head etc.
Alcohol may kill brain cells but it kills the weak ones first. This is called the Principle of Social Darwinism. The more you drink the smarter you get.
Tune in next week, boys and girls, as we explore the use of high blood pressure and colesterol to reinforce weak arteries.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delictorum Votis