The Aging Brain Can Make New Cells

by Jeffrey H. Reinhardt, MSc

Thomas J. Lewis, Ph.D., CEO of The Boston Brain Clinical Institute, stated that if you balance the inflammatory processes that occur during suboptimal cognitive health, the aging brain can recover cognitive functions and memory. This recovery process is thought to involve, at a minimum, the disaggregation and clearance of abnormal protein deposits found in neurofibrillary tangles associated with the aging brain and, particularly, with cognitive health.

Neurogenesis, which involves the production of new brain cells, is also an obligatory part of the recovery process, leading to the progressive restoration of the ability to recognize family members and friends as well as communicate coherently.

Another very important requirement for the recovery of important brain cell functions is the adequate and consistent circulation of oxygenated blood to the brain. This improved blood flow to the brain provides the brain with more glucose (sugar) as an energy source, amino acids and other essential nutrients, plus vitally important antioxidants.

If oxidative stress in the brain, which leads inexorably to imbalanced inflammatory processes, is significantly reduced by the reconstitution of the protective nutritional antioxidant defense system, then the brain can start to rebuild the structural foundation tissues, which are comprised of the astroglial cells, microglial cells and ependymal cells, and begin to regenerate new, young neurons to restore brain functions. The flow of nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood throughout the brain also nourishes the extracellular matrix in the ventricles and other anatomic regions of the brain. When this extracellular matrix is supplied with blood-borne oxygen, nutrients and antioxidants, the extracellular matrix, which exists throughout the brain, produces growth factors and other signaling molecules that stimulate and support the activation of brain stem cells that differentiate to produce new neurons. It is these growing numbers of new neurons and the ongoing clearance of the deposits of abnormal proteins plus restoring of balanced inflammatory processes within the brain that allow for healthy cognitive functions and memory.

Neuron Growth Factors (NGF™) contains a number of ingredients shown to stimulate neurogenesis by helping to regenerate neurites and dendrites in the brain, thus improving cognitive processes.