Brain Guard

Pick any capital city in the world and you’ll find its most fortified buildings are often home to their government – the brains behind running a country. When it comes to running the human body, your brain is heavily guarded too. A barrier, called the blood-brain barrier, allows vital nutrients to get past while stopping harmful toxins. Researchers know special cells that line up around brain blood vessels are involved. However the exact roles of these perivascular cells are not clear. By imaging zebrafish brains (pictured), researchers uncovered a group of perivascular cells (green) clustering around blood vessels (pink) called FGPs. Their shape and location revealed they are equivalent to FGPs found in mammals, including humans. Zebrafish are ideal for tinkering with genes and visualising their effects, which means we now have a helpful tool to find out what this particular group of perivascular cells may be up to.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Marina Venero Galanternik and colleagues
• Division of Developmental Biology, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, April 2017