Adult neurogenesis: An evolutionary perspective

Abstract

When adult neurogenesis was discovered in the mammalian brain it was often considered an atavism and, even today, many people are convinced that there has been a “phylogenetic reduction” away from lifelong neurogenesis, favoring stability for complex brains. Adult neurogenesis is found throughout the animal kingdom but varies to a large extent. Mammals might have fewer neurogenic zones than, for example, fish, but within their remaining neurogenic zones, the new neurons are highly functional. Especially, humans have very substantial quantities of neurogenesis in their hippocampus. At least for the mammalian dentate gyrus, one can thus argue that there has been evolution toward neurogenesis-based plasticity rather than away from it.