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Beginning in the late ’90s, a handful of studies reported evidence of adult neurogenesis in the human brain, either by estimating the birth dates of cells present in postmortem brain specimens or by labeling telltale molecular markers of newborn neurons or dividing neural stem cells. However, these findings, some of which were based on small numbers of brain samples, have remained controversial.
In particular, researchers have questioned whether the limited number of markers used in each study were truly specific to newborn neurons, and have suggested alternative explanations, such as the inadvertent labeling of dividing non-neuronal cells called glia (which are well known to continue regenerating through life).
Comprehensive Search Reveals Early Loss of Neural Stem Cell Niche in Human Brain
In the new study, Shawn Sorrells, PhD, a senior researcher in the Alvarez-Buylla lab, and Mercedes Paredes, PhD, a UCSF assistant professor of neurology, led a team that collected and analyzed samples of the human hippocampus obtained by clinical collaborators on three continents: Zhengang Yang, PhD, in China; José Manuel García Verdugo, PhD, in Spain; Gary Mathern, MD, at UCLA; and Edward Chang, MD, and Kurtis Auguste, MD, at UCSF. The brain specimens included 37 postmortem tissue samples and 22 surgically excised samples from patients who had been treated for epilepsy.
Via Miloš Bajčetić
