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An assessment of the existence of adult neurogenesis in humans and value of its rodent models for neuropsychiatric diseases

Molecular Psychiatry volume 27, pages 377–382 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

In sub-mammalian vertebrates like fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, new neurons are produced during the entire lifespan. This capacity diminishes considerably in birds and even more in mammals where it persists only in the olfactory system and hippocampal dentate gyrus. Adult neurogenesis declines even more drastically in nonhuman primates and recent evidence shows that this is basically extinct in humans. Why should such seemingly useful capacity diminish during primate evolution? It has been proposed that this occurs because of the need to retain acquired complex knowledge in stable populations of neurons and their synaptic connections during many decades of human life. In this review, we will assess critically the claim of significant adult neurogenesis in humans and show how current evidence strongly indicates that humans lack this trait. In addition, we will discuss the allegation of many rodent studies that adult neurogenesis is involved in psychiatric diseases and that it is a potential mechanism for human neuron replacement and regeneration. We argue that these reports, which usually neglect significant structural and functional species-specific differences, mislead the general population into believing that there might be a cure for a variety of neuropsychiatric diseases as well as stroke and brain trauma by genesis of new neurons and their incorporation into existing synaptic circuitry.

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Fig. 1: Schematic representation of the general relation between the amount of adult neurogenesis and cognitive abilities in different vertebrates derived from a common ancestor (⋆).

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This study was partly supported by the NIH grant DA023999 to PR and MacBrainResource (supported by MH113257 to AD).

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  1. Department of Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Alvaro Duque, Jon I. Arellano & Pasko Rakic

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  1. Alvaro Duque
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PR was invited to write this Expert Review and conceived the scope of the paper. AD, JIA, and PR examined the literature on this large subject and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Pasko Rakic.

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Duque, A., Arellano, J.I. & Rakic, P. An assessment of the existence of adult neurogenesis in humans and value of its rodent models for neuropsychiatric diseases. Mol Psychiatry 27, 377–382 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01314-8

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