How Does Neurogenesis Affect Your Brain

Contrary to popular belief, our brains do not reach adulthood and stop changing or growing. Although there are limitations, such as our inability to heal brain damage the way we heal other body parts, human brains continue to generate new neurons well past when was originally thought. This process is called neurogenesis, and until recently, was seen as a development only occurring in embryonic and perinatal stages in mammals. Luckily, this continues throughout life, and is beneficial to college students in multiple ways!
Similar to progenitor cells in the developing brain, the adult brain contains a small number of stem cells that are able to divide and produce neurons. Through research conducted involving slightly unpleasant treatment of rats, we can infer a lot about our own brains. Adult neurogenesis has been detected through a process of administering radioactive
The first structure this occurs in is the olfactory bulb, which is located in the forebrain. This structure processes information about smell and sends it to other parts of the brain. If this structure were unable to generate new cells, we would very quickly lose our sense of smell. While the loss of any sense may have several associated problems, college students may be interested most in how the loss of smell may effect their dating life. One major way that we subconsciously connect (or do not connect) with others is through scent. A study was done on the correlation between emotions and body odor. While the participants were generally unable to determine the emotion of others of the same sex based on smell, the majority were able to guess whether the opposite sex was happy or scared based on the same information. If humans lost the ability to generate new cells allowing us to continue smelling, there would likely be a decrease in the amount of successful tinder