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Neurogenesis after brain injury: Implications for neurorehabilitation.
Authors:
McMillan, T. M., ROBERTSON, I. H., & WILSON, B. A.
Reference:
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 9, 129-133.
Year of publication:
1999
CBU number:
3768
Abstract:
This paper is a response to an earlier paper published in Nature Medicine (Eriksson et al., 1998) providing evidence for the genesis of neurons (granule calls) in the adult human brain. They found post mortem evidence for neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus in five patients who died of cancer. We consider the implications of these findings for the rehabilitation of people with neurological insults. for many years the belief in neurorehabilitation has been that regeneration of cell bodies within the brain is not possible so rehabilitation has been geared towards a) enhancing connections between surviving cells, b) teaching strategies to circumvent an impaired function and c) preventing the development of secondary problems such as depression. If the Eriksson et al findings are confirmed, we may need to change our conceptualisation of what neurorehabilitation can do to the human brain.
