Adult Neurogenesis

June 9-13, 2025

Director: Gerd Kempermann 

Technische Universität and DZNE, Dresden, Germany

Faculty:

Fred H. Gage, Salk Institute, La Jolla, USA

Juan Song, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Sebastian Jessberger, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Sandrine Thuret, King’s College London, UK

Hongjun Song, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, USA

Gerd Kempermann, Technische Universität and DZNE, Dresden, Germany

Adult neurogenesis is today recognized as a specialized yet broadly important mechanism of plasticity in the adolescent, adult, and ageing mammalian brain. Sixty years of inspired research have produced a vibrant body of knowledge that increasingly allows us to see how adult-born neurons contribute to how our brain works. This has thrown some conventional concepts into doubt. Adult neurogenesis might be selective and exclusive to very few regions; where we find adult neurogenesis in mammals, it appears to exert highly specific and strategic network functions that have consequences beyond the immediate context.

The state of the art, sixty years after J. Altman’s initial description of adult-born neurons, raises whole new sets of questions regarding function and regulation. At the 2025 Adult Neurogenesis Challenge Workshop, we will discuss what makes adult neurogenesis such an advanced adaptive mechanism. We will do so from the molecular and cellular details to the system level and beyond. We aim to improve our understanding of the bigger picture while paying close attention to the exciting new information that continues to challenge our ideas about adult neurogenesis.