Review Article on adult neurogenesis in humans

The concept of neurogenesis in the adult human brain was conceived in the 1960s, revisited in the 1980s and confirmed in the 1990s. It was a controversial area of research due to methodological challenges. It is now widely accepted that new neurons are continually generated in specific regions in the adult brain. This occurs primarily in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricles and the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus in the hippocampus. Neuroblasts from the subventricular zone migrate along the rostral migratory stream into the olfactory bulb, whereas neuroblasts from the subgranular zone show relatively little migratory behavior, and differentiate into dentate gyrus granule cells. Growth factors, neurotrophins, cytokines, and hormones are also major regulators of adult neurogenesis. Much progress was made over the past decade, but many questions were remain unanswered, new insights are emerging at a stunning rate and made the investigation of neurogenesis in the adult human brain an intense area of research. In this review, I tried to present recent research findings regarding basic concept, historical background, primary site, factors influencing, clinical implications and functions of adult neurogenesis. Literatures searched for this paper were carried out by accessing PubMed, Google scholar, Web of science and other databases.