(Not The Actual) Squirrel Monkeys
While we may not particularly like the process, it seems that coping with stress leads to neurogenesis. Professor David Lyons (Stanford) and his team examined the impact of social stress in primates. They found increased brain cell growth in the hippocampus when the animals successfully reorganized their social ties after a separation.
The team tested their premise, that coping tends to counteract the otherwise negative effects of stress, by intermittently separating pairs within a group of adult male squirrel monkeys and allowing new pairs to form.
They found increased hippocampal neurogenesis in the squirrel monkey males. Previous studies with rodents found that hippocampal neurogenesis contributes to spatial learning performance, and Lyons’s team found enhanced spatial learning in the monkeys, too.
The conclusion for us? Therapies designed to promote stress coping potentially have similar effects in humans, particularly those suffering from depression.
Here then we have another reason why Brain Fitness Pro can help alleviate depression.
Tags: Depression, neurogenesis, news, stress