Gut Health – Neurons in the gut die and replace every few weeks

Nerve cells in the gut die and replace every few weeks
INNERSPACE IMAGING/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

By Chelsea Whyte in San Diego

The neurons that make up your enteric nervous system – the “brain” in your gut – are almost entirely replaced every two weeks, a study in mice suggests. What’s more, an imbalance in the gut’s ability to repopulate itself with new neurons and clear out the dead ones could lead to Parkinson’s disease.

“It’s problems with the balance of the turnover of cells, not the neurons themselves, that can cause gastrointestinal problems and diseases,” says Subhash Kulkarni at Johns Hopkins

View full article