Issn Print: 1533-7006

Publication Date: 2002/05/01


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RADIAL GLIA AND NEURONAL PRECURSOR CELLS MAY BE ONE AND THE SAME

Alice Goodman

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Excerpt

A new study sheds light on and overturns some traditional assumptions about normal brain development. Building on previously published observations in animal models (Nature 2001; 409: 714–720), Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, and colleagues report that radial glia appear to be the predominant neuron-generating cells in the proliferative ventricular zone during embryonic development.
Dr. Kriegstein, Professor of Neurology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, presented the data at the AAN Annual Meeting in April and discussed his findings in a phone interview before the meeting.
“The traditional view was that during early stages of brain development, there are two kinds of cells in the proliferative ventricular zone: neuronal precursor cells and radial glia cells. It was assumed that the neuronal precursor cells generate neurons like ‘neuronal factories,’ and that they reside along with radial glia cells in the proliferative zone. After neurons are produced, they were thought to migrate along the fibers of the radial glia cells to the cerebral cortex,” Dr. Kriegstein explained.
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