Learning and protecting itself: how the brain adapts (press release, Dec 12, 2021)
Göttingen researchers investigate the effect of certain enzymes in the healthy and diseased brain
The brain is a remarkably complex and adaptable organ. However, adaptability decreases with age: as new connections between nerve cells in the brain form less easily, the brain’s plasticity decreases. If there is an injury to the central nervous system such as after a stroke, the brain needs to compensate for this by reorganising itself. To do this, a dense network of molecules between the nerve cells – known as the extracellular matrix – must loosen. This is the job of a wide variety of enzymes that ultimately regulate how plastic or how stable the brain is. Researchers at the University of Göttingen studied what happens when certain enzymes are blocked in mice. Depending on whether the brain is healthy or diseased, the inhibition had opposite effects. The results were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Read more in the press release by Göttingen University.