"UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found a compound that preserves newly created brain cells and boosts learning and memory in an animal study. The study of this compound...appears in the July 9 issue of Cell..." - Lit

"Over a three-year period, the research team led by Dr. McKnight and Dr. Andrew Pieper, assistant professor of psychiatry and biochemistry at UT Southwestern, screened 1,000 individual molecules to see which ones might enhance the production of neurons in the adult mouse hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to learning and memory. The scientists found that one of the compounds, called P7C3, achieved this by protecting newborn neurons from dying. The researchers then administered P7C3 to "knockout" mice lacking a gene that controls the generation of new neurons in the hippocampus. Humans who lack this gene have a variety of learning disabilities, and the "knockout" rodents show related abnormalities as well as a poorly formed hippocampus. When the "knockout" mouse received P7C3, however, normal structure and function of the hippocampus were restored." - Lit