Dolphins show how to repair human brains

(ANSA) - Turin, April 10 - Dolphins can help discover the secret of repairing the human brain, according to Turin university researchers.
    Neurogenesis, or the capacity of producing neurons, is linked to smell, the Cavalieri Ottolenghi Neuroscience Institute team said in a study published in the Brain Structure & Function journal.
    Dolphins lost their sense of smell 40 million years ago but thanks to their land-based ancestor they have a vestigial sense remaining.
    In man, too, for whom smell has become less important for survival, this region is less active.
    But just as smell may be reinforced, the production of nerve cells may be boosted too, the team said.
    "These results," says researcher Luca Bonfanti, "do not exclude that research may one day be able to modulate the residues of neurogenetic activity remaining in man for a therapeutic purpose".