For decades researchers thought that the production of neurons stopped early in life, leaving the adult brain with a finite number of neurons. The discovery of neural stem cells with self-renewing capacity and multi-potency has radically changed this view, and it is now well accepted that the birth of new neurons continues throughout adulthood. Adult neurogenesis occurs in two primary locations: the olfactory bulb and the central part of the hippocampus, called the dendate gyrus (shown at the left).
Image: Widefield multi-photon fluorescence image of a rat hippocampus stained to reveal the distribution of glia (cyan), neurofilaments (green) and cell nuclei (yellow). The image was produced as part of an ongoing brain mapping project for the Whole Brain Catalog.