Moderate levels of aerobic exercise broadly enhance cognition throughout the lifespan. One hypothesized contributing mechanism is increased adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Recently, we measured the effects of voluntary wheel running on adult hippocampal neurogenesis in 12 different mouse strains, and found increased neurogenesis in all strains, ranging from 2- to 5-fold depending on the strain....

Virtually all mammals, including humans, exhibit neurogenesis throughout life in the hippocampus, a learning and memory center in the brain. Numerous studies in animal models imply that hippocampal neurogenesis is important for functions such as learning, memory, and mood. Interestingly, hippocampal neurogenesis is very sensitive to physiological and pathological stimuli. Certain pathological s...

In the developing nervous system, progenitor cells must decide when to withdraw from the cell cycle and commence differentiation. There is considerable debate whether cell-extrinsic or cell-intrinsic factors are most important for triggering this switch. In the vertebrate retina, initiation of neurogenesis has recently been explained by a 'sequential-induction' model--signals from newly differe...

Recent theories posit that adult neurogenesis supports dentate gyrus pattern separation and hence is necessary for some types of discrimination learning. Using an inducible transgenic mouse model, we investigated the contribution of adult-born neurons to spatial and nonspatial touch-screen discriminations of varying levels of difficulty. Arresting neurogenesis caused a modest but statistically ...

New neurons incorporate into the granular cell layer of the dentate gyrus throughout life. Neurogenesis is modulated by behavior and plays a major role in hippocampal plasticity. Along with older mature neurons, new neurons structure the dentate gyrus, and determine its function. Recent data suggest that the level of hippocampal neurogenesis is substantial in the human brain, suggesting that ne...

Although there is evidence suggesting that adult neurogenesis may contribute to hippocampus-dependent memory, signaling mechanisms responsible for adult hippocampal neurogenesis are not well characterized. Here we report that ERK5 mitogen-activated protein kinase is specifically expressed in the neurogenic regions of the adult mouse brain. The inducible and conditional knock-out (icKO) of erk5 ...

Neurogenesis continues in the adult brain and is increased in certain pathological states. We reported recently that neurogenesis is enhanced in hippocampus of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We now report that the effect of AD on neurogenesis can be reproduced in a transgenic mouse model. PDGF-APP(Sw,Ind) mice, which express the Swedish and Indiana amyloid precursor protein mutations, ...

Adult neurogenesis is a process of producing nerve cells from their progenitor that occurs in some areas in the brain such as the hypothalamus. Low activity in this area plays a role in neural degeneration and diseases such as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and depression. MS is a neurodegenerative disease with a permanent disability that the main reason for it is axonal degeneration and neuronal...

Background & Aims: Adult neurogenesis occurs in the two main areas of the brain of most mammalian species in; sub ventricular zone, and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Many factors such as 17-β estradiol affect neurogenesis in the hippocampus. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of exogenous 17-β estradiol on neurogenesis in the ovariectomized (OVX) mice. Materials & Meth...