Adult Neurogenesis

Research on adult neurogenesis and neural stem cell biology is among the fastest-growing and most dynamic fields in neuroscience. With new neurons being produced throughout our lives, there is a fundamental change in perspective: brain development never ends and brain plasticity can go beyond synapses and neurites.

Adult Neurogenesis 2 is the authoritative reference on new neurons in the adult brain, on the regulation of adult neurogenesis and the functional relevance of new neurons including their contribution to learning and memory. After a historical overview, the book describes in detail adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus as well as the subventricular zone and olfactory bulb. Regulatory mechanisms at all levels from cellular to behavioral are discussed in great detail. The subject of neurogenesis outside the "canonical" neurogenic regions of rodents and primates is discussed and an entire chapter is dedicated to adult neurogenesis in different species. The book concludes with a chapter on the hypotheses that link failing adult neurogenesis and neural stem cells with diseases such as temporal lobe epilepsy, major depression, schizophrenia, brain tumors, and dementias.

For everybody interested in new neurons for old brains, Adult Neurogenesis 2 provides a unique resource for the years to come. With steadily increasing interest in adult neurogenesis across neurobiology and medical neurosciences as well as in the public, this new edition couldn't be more timely. The text has been completely rewritten to cover the more than thousand new reports published after the first edition had come out, new tables summarize complicated issues, a new layout facilitates quick reference, and many new color illustrations visualize important concepts

Gerd Kempermann, MD, was born in Cologne, Germany, and received his medical training in Cologne and Freiburg, Germany. He worked as a neuropathologist before he did his post-doctoral work with Fred H. Gage at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, where he and H. Georg Kuhn discovered the activity-dependent regulation of adult neurogenesis. From 2000 - 2007 he was research group leader at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch with a joint appointment at the Department of Experimental Neurology, Charite, Berlin, Germany. He is currently Professor at the CRTD, the DFG research Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden, and Speaker of the Dresden site of the DZNE, the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.