Whose brain gets bigger in the fall?

Autumn is the time to gather the harvest. For squirrels, that means finding the nuts they have hidden away for the winter. Part of their hippocampus increases in size when the weather turns cold. Depending on the study, it may be due to new neurons or “seasonal plasticity.” This helps them remember where they squirreled things away, so to speak. Scientists are studying this because that is part of the brain we lose with Alzheimer’s.