New brain cells grow as quickly in your 70s as in your 20s

HEALTHY pensioners have the power to create just as many new brain cells as young people in their 20s, research has revealed.

Scientists said the findings showed mental decline by your 70s is not the ‘inevitable process many of us think it is’.

Researchers made the discovery after counting the number of new cells growing in the hippocampus, the part of the brain which processes memories and emotions.

They found around 700 brain cells were created each day – even in the oldest people studied – and that there was no size difference in the hippocampus in young and old brains.

However, the American scientists warned we still need to keep our brains and bodies active to ensure new cells are not wasted.

They examined the brains of 28 women and men aged between 14 and 79 who had died suddenly. None had medical conditions or were on psychiatric drugs.

Lead author Maura Boldrini said: ‘We found that older people have a similar ability to make thousands of hippocampal new neurons from progenitor cells as younger people do. We also found equivalent volumes of the hippocampus across ages.’ In some respects, however, the older brains were in a worse condition, such as blood vessels not regrowing to the same extent as younger people, she added.

Dr Boldrini, associate professor of neurobiology at Columbia University, said the autopsies showed that new neurons may also be less able to make new connections in older people. She advised exercise, social interaction, learning and a healthy diet as ways of keeping brains healthy.

The study was the first to look at newly formed neurons and the condition of blood vessels within the entire human hippocampus soon after death.

In response, Dr Duncan Wood, a neuroscientist at the Open University, said the findings ‘should give hope to people to look after their brain health as they age’.

He added: ‘This provides further evidence mental decay and decline is not the inevitable process many of us think it is. There is hope for us all in our twilight years.’

But Dr Wood warned: ‘If you are not an active learner in old age and remain a couch potato you will experience mental decline regardless of the number of new neurons your brain is producing.’

Professor Colin Blakemore, director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses at the University of London, said the finding that the hippocampus had not shrunk with age was ‘surprising’.

He noted research published last month by scientists at the University of California at San Francisco found almost no new brain cells were produced after the age of 20.