Neural stem cells of the mammalian forebrain

摘要

It has been 35 years since Altman and Das (1965) originally proposed that neuro-genesis occurs in the adult mammalian brain. Largely due to the poor availability of neuronal markers, and an inability to repeat these results in humans because of the technological constraints of the time, this finding fell into disrepute for nearly 30 years. In 1992, studies by Reynolds and Weiss revealed the presence of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the embryonic (Reynolds et al., 1992) and adult mammalian forebrain (Reynolds and Weiss, 1992). The subsequent explosion of research in this field has revealed that NSCs probably function in the adult brain to mediate neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb (Lois and Alvarez-Buylla, 1994) and, preliminary studies suggest, in the primate neocortex (Gould et al., 1999). While a large emphasis has been placed on the manipulation of NSCs for clinical purposes in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, a growing interest has developed with regard to the role these cells may play in development.