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Judith Richards quoted from AP Science Writer, MALCOM RITTER, New York
10/29/98:


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> NEW YORK (AP) - Scientists have shown for the first time that adults
> grow new brain cells, even in their 60s and 70s.
>
> Up to now, it was generally believed that once you lost brain cells as
> an adult, they were gone forever. The finding raises a
> distant hope for treating brain diseases or damage by getting the brain
> to fix its broken circuitry.

This discovery is definately the type that I hope NIH will research as it
looks like it might have the word CURE in it.  Dormant brain cells coming
to life or new brain cells would certainly seem to be what pwp are looking
for.

> Still, the discovery contradicts the traditional wisdom that adult human
> brains do not make new neurons, even though that ability
> had been identified in rat brains some 30 years ago.

SOOO......what has been traditionally  wise is now not so wise after all??
I love it when new discoveries are made and the world changes.  I'd like to
feel like Christopher Columbus when he was able to prove the world isn't
flat.  I'm counting on being an unconvential pwp....one who participates in
the regeneration of brain cells or making new brain cells in the substantia
nigra of my brain.

> The big question is whether scientists can find ways to make new brain
> cells appear in the right places to overcome damage
> from strokes, brain injuries and such diseases as PARKINSONS and
> Alzheimer's. Right now, for example, the new neurons are in
> the wrong place to replace brain cells lost to heavy drinking.

I'm confident that scientists CAN figure out how to make the cells appear
where needed.  Hasn't man walked on the moon?

 > The new finding is reported in the November issue of the journal Nature
> Medicine by Fred Gage of the Salk Institute for
> Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and Peter Eriksson and
> colleagues at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg,
> Sweden.
>
> ``what we're saying is the same programs that are present
> during development are persisting throughout life,'' Gage said. ``Things
> we thought were ending are not ending, they're just
> continuing at a slower rate.''
>
Thank you Judith and Fred Gage of Salk Institute and Peter Eriksson of
Sweden.  You have certainly made my day!!!:):):):):):)

Jeanette Fuhr 48/11months

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>                        \\ | //         ...Tomorrow’s Cure
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