Brain Can Learn Continuously and Improve Memory

Researchers at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, USA have identified a type of stem cell in mice that makes adult neurons continue to provide new cells in the hippocampus for a life time. Hippocampus is the region of the brain responsible for learning and memory. These findings may enable neuroscientists to understand how to maintain youthful conditions for learning and memory, and repair and regenerate parts of the brain after injury and aging. These stem cells in the hippocampus region never stop replicating. This capacity is called plasticity of the brain which is defined as the ability to form new connections throughout life to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust to response to new input from the environment.