In a 2015 experiment, it was shown that complete absence of auditory stimuli activates neurogenesis in the hippocampus, a region of the brain important for memory and learning.
Mice were subjected to various acoustic conditions, including standard background noise, white noise, ethologically significant sounds, structured music, and silence.
After one day of exposure, an increase in the division of neural progenitors was recorded under all acoustic conditions. However, on the seventh day, a sustained increase in new neurons was observed exclusively in mice that were in silence, unlike those exposed to white noise or background sound conditions. This suggests that complete silence more effectively promotes neurogenesis than any auditory stimuli.
At first glance, it may seem surprising that the absence of sound elicits such a response. In a study published in the journal PNAS in the summer of 2023, scientists found that silence is processed similarly to sound, meaning that we actually "hear" the absence of sound.
Moreover, silence can serve as a powerful stimulus, as it is extremely rare in natural conditions and is perceived by the organism as a signal to heighten attention and adapt. Perhaps it is this need to adapt to "meaningful silence" that explains the brain's response.
Despite the growing amount of indirect evidence of neurogenesis in adults, the results obtained in rodents should be extrapolated with caution.
The record "Silence Generates New Neurons in the Brain of Adult Rodents" first appeared in K-News.
