Neurogenesis: Exercise and Eat Right

Exercise has shown a direct link to "neurogenesis." Walking for just 45 minutes per day lead to new hippocampal tissue growth. Moving can cause your brain to grow.

Besides the positive physical, mental and emotional benefits of exercise, it is striking to see the intellectual and neuronal effects. There are multitudes of other studies, all of which show that exercise is beneficial to neurogenesis. This extends to protecting against Alzheimer’s as well.

Along with exercise, there are many "dietary measures" that can help boost brain growth. The first would be curcumin, which is an element of the spice turmeric. As studies have indicated, curcumin has been directly linked to neurogenesis. Other studies have shown that curcumin also increases "brain derived neurotrophic factor" expression. This is important because BDNF is vital to many neurologic functions.

Survival of brain cells in situations where they would normally die has also been shown to happen by "caloric restriction," and/or intermittent fasting. Besides neurogenesis, there is also a process called "autophagy" which gets turned on when human beings fast. Autophagy is loosely described as the process of cells "cleaning house, and getting rid of junk." Theoretically, you can see how this may be beneficial to improved cellular and neuronal firing. 

There are benefits to omega-3 fatty acids. Docosahexaenoic acid is preferable over all other forms of omega-3s. The scientific literature shows that DHA helps to support neurogenesis. There are many other reasons why you may want to supplement with DHA, or obtain large amounts from daily intake of wild-caught fish, but the specific neurological effects of DHA are intriguing.

Blueberries are another beneficial food that can be linked to neurogenesis. The "flavonoids" in blueberries are advantageous. Since the link between increased neurogenesis and increased mood and cognition is obvious, it makes sense to regularly include blueberries in your diet. Not only will you be enjoying the cognitive effects of the food, but you will be getting the inherent antioxidant effects as well.

Green tea is another method of increasing neurogenesis. Specifically, the compound epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is the element which has been linked to the growth of new brain cells. Drinking green tea, or supplementing with EGCG in isolated form, will increase your rate of new neuronal growth.

It is important to note that many new neurons borne via the process of neurogenesis die within two weeks. So, it's not a way to replace a barely-functioning brain with Einstein’s brain. But, many of the new neurons do migrate into the molecular layer.

Think of neurogenesis as being similar to taking a supplement. Yes, it may be slightly beneficial to increase your intake of foods and supplements to help stimulate neurogenesis. But if your overall diet and lifestyle is poor, highly stressed and generally unhealthy, these methods will do little-to-no benefit. You must always remember the whole picture, the whole human body, and the whole psyche.

In the News: Effects of Stress On Brain Cells Offer Clues to New Anti-Depressant Drugs

Structure of protein SGK1.Based on PyMOL rendering of PDB 2R5T.

May 6, 2013 in Neuroscience

Research from King's College London reveals the detailed mechanism behind how stress hormones reduce the number of new brain cells - a process considered to be linked to depression. The researchers identified a key protein responsible for the long-term detrimental effect of stress on cells, and importantly, successfully used a drug compound to block this effect, offering a potential new avenue for drug discovery.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) was co-funded by the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR BRC) for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London.

Depression affects approximately 1 in 5 people in the UK at some point in their lives. The World Health Organisation estimate that by 2030, depression will be the leading cause of the global burden of disease. Treatment for depression involves either medication or talking therapy, or usually a combination of both.

Current antidepressant medication is successful in treating depression in about 50-65% of cases, highlighting the need for new, more effective treatments.

Depression and successful antidepressant treatment are associated with changes in a process called "neurogenesis"- the ability of the adult brain to continue to produce new brain cells. At a molecular level, stress is known to increase levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) which in turn acts on a receptor called the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). However, the exact mechanism explaining how the GR decreases neurogenesis in the brain has remained unclear.

Professor Carmine Pariante, from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry and lead author of the paper, says: "With as much as half of all depressed patients failing to improve with currently available medications, developing new, more effective antidepressants is an important priority. In order to do this, we need to understand the abnormal mechanisms that we can target. Our study shows the importance of conducting research on cellular models, animal models and clinical samples, all under one roof in order to better facilitate the translation of laboratory findings to patient benefit."

In this study, the multidisciplinary team of researchers studied cellular and animal models before confirming their findings in human blood samples. First, the researchers studied human hippocampal stem cells, which are the source of new cells in the human brain. They gave the cells cortisol to measure the effect on neurogenesis and found that a protein called SGK1 was important in mediating the effects of stress hormones on neurogenesis and on the activity of the GR.

By measuring the effect of cortisol over time, they found that increased levels of SGK1 prolong the detrimental effects of stress hormones on neurogenesis. Specifically, SGK1 enhances and maintains the long-term effect of stress hormones, by keeping the GR active even after cortisol had been washed out of the cells.

Next, the researchers used a pharmacological compound (GSK650394) known to inhibit SGK1, and found they were able to block the detrimental effects of stress hormones and ultimately increase the number of new brain cells.

Finally, the research team were able to confirm these findings by studying levels of SGK1 in animal models and human blood samples of 25 drug-free depressed patients.

Dr. Christoph Anacker, from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry and first author of the paper, says: "Because a reduction of neurogenesis is considered part of the process leading to depression, targeting the molecular pathways that regulate this process may be a promising therapeutic strategy. This novel mechanism may be particularly important for the effects of chronic stress on mood, and ultimately depressive symptoms. Pharmacological interventions aimed at reducing the levels of SGK1 in depressed patients may therefore be a potential strategy for future antidepressant treatments."

More information: Anacker, C. et al. 'A role for the kinase SGK1 in stress, depression and glucocorticoid effects on hippocampal neurogenesis' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (May 2013) www.pnas.org/cgi/d… s.1300886110

Wiki on SGK1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGK

In the News: Scientists Find Way to Turn Stem Cells Into Brain Cells

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found a simple way to turn bone marrow stem cells directly into brain precursor cells, such as those shown here. (Credit: Image courtesy of the Lerner lab, The Scripps Research Institute)

An antibody injected into bone marrow was discovered in a California lab

by Jason Koebler

 A California lab has discovered a way turn stem cells from bone marrow into brain cells.
Scientists have discovered an antibody that can turn stem cells from a patient's bone marrow directly into brain cells, a potential breakthrough in the treatment of neurological diseases and injuries.

Richard Lerner, of the Scripps Research Institute in California, says that when a specific antibody is injected into stem cells from bone marrow—which normally turn into white blood cells—the cells can be triggered to turn into brain cells.

"There's been a lot of research activity where people would like to repair brain and spinal cord injuries," Lerner says. "With this method, you can go to a person's own stem cells and turn them into brain cells that can repair nerve injuries."

Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that the immune system uses to help identify foreign threats to the body. They bind to foreign invaders in the body in order to alert white blood cells to attack harmful bacteria and viruses. There are millions of known antibodies.

Lerner and his team were working to find an antibody that would activate what is known as the GCSF receptor in bone marrow stem cells, in order to stimulate their growth. When they found one that worked, the researchers were surprised: Instead of inducing the stem cells to grow, they began to form into neural cells.

"The cells proliferated, but also started becoming long and thin and attaching to the bottom of the dish," which is reminiscent of behavior of neural cells, Jia Xie, a research associate on Lerner's team, said in a released statement. Further tests confirmed that they were neural progenitor cells, which are very similar to mature brain cells.

Lerner says that scientists have "an awful lot of experience injecting antibodies" into stem cells and that the process is not "inherently dangerous." The team plans to start animal tests of the technology soon.

"We're going to collaborate with people who are trying to regenerate nerves in the eye," Lerner says. "We will team up with a couple people strong in that area of research."




From: http://marswillsendnomore.wordpress.com/



Kathy Sierra: Brain Death by Dull Cubicle

Environmental enrichment is my new thing, so I took to google to find more data. Here's a relevant blog post I found.

Brain Death by Dull Cubicle

Posted by Kathy Sierra on February 20, 2006, on her Passionate blog:

http://headrush.typepad.com/about.html

You always knew that dull, boring cubicles could suck the joy out of work, but now there's evidence that they can change your brain. Not mentally or emotionally, no, we're talking physical structural changes. You could almost say, "Dull, lifeless work environments cause brain damage."

I said "almost", because it depends on your definition of brain damage. What the research suggests is that in unstimulating, unenriched, stressful environments, the brain STOPS producing new neurons (more on that later). But it's only been the last few years that scientists have finally realized that the human brain can build new neurons. For most of the previous century, it was believed that we were born with all the neurons we'd ever have.

Scientists who believed in and studied the idea of "neurogenesis" were dismissed, criticized, ignored. But Princeton's Elizabeth Gould has picked up the neurogenesis ball and run with it. She is almost single-handedly changing the face of neuroscience and psychology.
From a fascinating article in the new print issue of Seed Magazine (my new favorite):

"Eight years after Gould defied the dogma of her field and proved that the primate brain creates new cells, she has gone on to demonstrate that the structure of the brain is incredibly influenced by one's surroundings."

One of the most interesting (and, in hindsight, "doh!") discoveries was that one of the main reasons researchers kept finding NO evidence of new neuron development in their test primates is because they kept them in an environment which shut that process down. In other words, it was the caged-living that stopped the neurogenesis process. By giving her animals a rich, natural enviornment, Gould "flipped the switch" back on, allowing their brains to work normally, and sure enough--the happier, more stimulated animals showed a DRAMATIC increase in neurogenesis as well as dendrite density.
  One summary:
"Complex surroundings create a complex brain."

[One interesting and beautiful back story--researcher Fernando Nottebohm had showed earlier that neurogenesis was necessary for bird songs. "To sing their complex melodies, male birds needed new brain cells. In fact, up to 1% of the neurons in the bird's song center were created anew, every day." Of course, his work was dissed as irrelevant. I mean, come on, these are bird brains. "Avian neurogenesis was explained away as an exotic adaptation..."]

So, back to cubicles. The key to Gould's demonstration of neurogenesis (where virtually all other primate studies had failed) was the stimulating environment. Cages stopped neurgenesis, which she describes as "The neurons stop investing in themselves." She links caged environments with stress, and stimulating natural environments as less stressful, so there is a big assumption here that a dull, boring, unstimulating cube life is also stressful (for the brain, anyway--it doesn't mean the work itself is stressful).

But she didn't just throw them in a natural environment... she also made sure they had a lot of opportunities for play. And perhaps very importantly--frequent rotation and introduction of new toys. I've always wondered why in every game company I worked for (or anyplace with "creatives"), it was assumed and encouraged that people made elaborate virtual worlds out of their workspace, but in non-game/creative workplaces, not so much. While this is often allowed in the cubes of non-game programmers, for the most part it's only the young hipster startups that consider this a primary, essential element of their corporate culture. [Apparently those ping-pong tables and games in those web startups were more than just examples of bubble/VC excess.]

With Gould's work, it would seem, we should not only be allowing employees to, say, decorate their cube, but we should be encouraging it at every turn AND take steps to make frequent changes to the area. (And by "changes", I don't mean rotating demotivation posters). For too many places I've worked, a new "official policy poster" or some new HR thing is about all the stimulating change we got. (That, and the increasingly emphatic signs posted in the coffee/kitchen area about "your mother doesn't work here, it's up to US to keep it clean!!!")
It would appear that blowing your own mind on a regular basis is not just a good idea, it's a key part of neurogenesis. One of the conclusions she came to is that "learning heals the brain." And again, we aren't talking emotionally or psychologically, we're talking physical structures.

She believes that even those who have been in a stressful environment can undo much of the damage by not just removing the stress, but actively introducing enriching and stimulating things.

Experiencing and learning new things is literally exercise for the brain!

That's so cool.

The implications of her work are of course much deeper and more significant than just "dull and/or stressful work environments with low stimulation suppress neurogenesis, which means less or no new brain cells." There are all kinds of social implications as well, although she points out that like most scientists, she does not want to see her work "twisted for political purposes".

But it does mean that the work we are all doing to help our users learn and grow and develop (and kick ass) is a lot more meaningful than just good customer support. Remember, when WE say "passionate users", we mean the kind of passion that inspires people to spend time learning and getting better at whatever it is they're passionate about. So it would seem that it might not be a huge stretch to say:

Passionate users grow more brain cells!

Apparently all work and no play makes Jack not just dull, but dumber. So don't forget to have fun...

Kathy Sierra has been interested in the brain and artificial intelligence since her days as a game developer (Virgin, Amblin', MGM). She is the co-creator of the bestselling Head First series (finalist for a Jolt Software Development award in 2003, and named to the Amazon Top Ten Editors Choice Computer Books for 2003 and 2004). She is also the founder of one of the largest community web sites in the world, javaranch.com. Kathy's passions are skiing, running, her Icelandic horse, gravity, and her latest favorite thing--Dance Dance Revolution.

A Neotrophin Model

A neotrophin model. Although the vast majority of neurons in the mammalian brain are formed prenatally, parts of the adult brain (for example, the hippocampus) retain the ability to grow new neurons from neural stem cells, a process known as neurogenesis. Neurotrophins are chemicals that help to stimulate and control neurogenesis.