
New Neurons for the Brain - dnetesn
http://maxplanck.nautil.us/article/348/new-neurons-for-the-brain
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myth_drannon
These are amazing news for people with brain damage conditions like Cerebral
Palsy. If they can replace the "dead" areas with new cells. Not sure about the
diseases since they will just make the new neurons damaged again.

I wonder what are the implications for healthy brains. If humans are born with
80 billion neurons and you can increase that number...

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ben_w
Without better knowledge of the structure of the brain, adding extra neurons
isn’t going to anything noteworthy in exactly the same way smooshing together
three cow brains isn’t going to make a human brain.

I’m optimistic that we _will_ learn these structures, but we _have yet to_ ,
is all.

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IAmGraydon
From the article:

"Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried,
the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, and the Helmholtz Zentrum München
have demonstrated that, in mice, transplanted embryonic nerve cells can indeed
be incorporated into an existing network and _correctly carry out the tasks of
damaged cells originally found in that region_."

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daveFNbuck
That's about repairing damaged brains, not augmenting healthy brains.

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mattigames
I think replacing very old cells with new ones, think 60-year-old's brain may
prove to be pretty much the same, in the sense that they have neuroplasticity
once again.

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ben_w
Depends on your goals. To think like a 20-year-old again? Sure, I’d buy that.
Superhuman? Nah — and there’s plenty we are _unable_ to think. I’m interested
in both types of brain enhancement.

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madman2890
Ayahuasca has also been shown to generate new brain cells which could,
theoretically, accomplish something similar.
[http://beckleyfoundation.org/ayahuasca-stimulates-the-
birth-...](http://beckleyfoundation.org/ayahuasca-stimulates-the-birth-of-new-
brain-cells/)

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samirm
I think that's generally true for most psychedelics.

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madman2890
I haven't seen any evidence to support the claim that psychedelics other than
Ayahuasca catalyze neurogenesis. That being said, there is evidence that LSD
increases neuroplasticity. [https://www.cell.com/cell-
reports/pdf/S2211-1247(18)30755-1....](https://www.cell.com/cell-
reports/pdf/S2211-1247\(18\)30755-1.pdf)

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samirm
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23727882](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23727882)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/1395272](https://www.nature.com/articles/1395272)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/762668](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/762668)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14557608](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14557608)

[https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/do-psychedelics-
trigger-n...](https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/do-psychedelics-trigger-
neurogenesis-heres-what-we-know/)

[https://maps.org/research/other-research](https://maps.org/research/other-
research)

Also highly recommend stuff by Paul Stamets.

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madman2890
Thanks for all of these references. I am checking them out now.

