Neurogenesis and Trauma Recovery

The Discovery of Neurogenesis

Long ago and far away (or so it seems) it was a standard belief among researchers that, once our brains matured they stopped growing or changing. Brain cells neither died, nor were new cells made.

That belief was so well-known, in fact, that I remember my mother saying something about it when I was growing up.

The idea that our brains can't heal like the rest of our bodies do -- by generating new cells -- was frightening.

It was also dead wrong.

To seriously oversimplify the story (the rest of which you can read in this terrific article in a 2006 SEED magazine piece), roughly eleven years ago Princeton Professor Elizabeth Gould proved that, rather than being static, human adult brains are, "constantly giving birth" to new cells.

The implications for trauma recovery could be phenomenal.

Stress Disfigures the Mind. Neurogenesis Can Help Bring it Back.

Indulging in oversimplification once again, Gould's research shows that our brains are literally molded by our lives.

According to the article:

The structure of our brain, from the details of our dendrites to the density of our hippocampus, is incredibly influenced by our surroundings. Put a primate under stressful conditions, and its brain begins to starve. It stops creating new cells. The cells it already has retreat inwards. The mind is disfigured.

The social implications of this research are staggering. If boring environments, stressful noises, and the primate’s particular slot in the dominance hierarchy all shape the architecture of the brain—and Gould’s team has shown that they do—then the playing field isn’t level. Poverty and stress aren’t just an idea: they are an anatomy. Some brains never even have a chance.

Or, as Gould's post-doc student Chrisian Mirescu said, “When a brain is worried, it’s just thinking about survival. It isn’t interested in investing in new cells for the future.”

Sounds like a good description of trauma, doesn't it?

Rats With PTSD

During one long experiment, Gould and Mirescu deprived newborn rats of their mothers for set lengths of time.

You know the problems that trauma-survivors have in dealing with day-to-day stressors? Once grown, these rats had the same issues -- they never learned how to deal with stress because the stress of being deprived of their mothers flooded their brains with a class of steroids, glucocorticoids, that are toxic for the brain. Too much chronic stress and neurogenesis stops happening while the parts of our brain that we need for learning and memory begins to wither away.

3 Possible Ways to Promote Neurogenesis -- and thus Healing -- In Our Brains

1. Learn new things. When put in plain cages, the brains of Dr. Gould's marmosets (another primate she works with) experienced decreased neurogenis. When the same animals were transferred to an "enriched" enclosure with things like hidden food and a variety of toys, their brains, "...underwent radical renovations at the cellular level," in less than four weeks.
   
   Not that this proves anything, but when last winter I experienced major depression brought on by sudden extreme stressors, one of the things I gravitated to almost instinctively was re-learning how to play chess. Within a few weeks, my mind started feeling sharper overall and I stopped being stumped by decisions like which pair of underwear to choose in the morning.


2. If you've been prescribed anti-depressants, take them. There is evidence that anti-depressants actually work by promoting neurogenesis, according to the SEED article.


3. Exercise. Yes, you've heard this before. But according to this article in BioEd online, physical exercise promotes the generation of new neurons (neurogenesis).

Further Research?

I've chosen to focus on the sEED Magazine piece because, 1. it fascinates me; 2. it's easy for a layperson to understand; and 3. I'm excited about the possibilities this research could have for helping people heal from trauma. However, this article was written in 2006. Does anyone out there have something just as good (or better) but more recent?

Thanks in advance!

Image courtesy of Hljod.Huskona via flickr