Eye Opening

Glial cells are the backing singers of the brain; essential for a perfect performance, but rarely given the credit they deserve. Neurons, frantically firing information from place to place, get all the glory but account for less than half of the brain’s volume. Glial cells provide support and insulation around neurons, but have had far less attention from researchers. To learn more about their role in early development, a team looked at a fruit fly’s visual system. For the system (pictured, with the retina, top, linking to the brain’s optic lobe, below) to develop, neuron growth in different areas must be perfectly balanced. Researchers found that this careful coordination relies on signals couriered by glial cells that ensure the right types of neurons develop in the right time and place (pink). And if this mechanism is present in adult cells, it could have implications for new stem-cell therapy development.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

Website

• Image by Vilaiwan M Fernandes, of the Desplan Lab, NYU's Department of Biology
• Department of Biology, New York University, NY, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Science, September 2017