Sniffing Out Neurons

As our busy brain whirrs away, processing information and steering our body through the world, it is constantly making new cells. This process of renovation relies on pools of stem cells – cells primed and waiting to develop into any number of useful functions – and has implications for neurological diseases from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s. A new study has found that signals sent between very separate areas of the brain spur this growth. In response to stimuli such as hunger and feeding, a mouse’s hypothalamus activated specific groups of stem cells to form new neurons, on-demand. Following long-distance signals sent across the brain, new neurons (white) were produced for the olfactory bulb – a part of the brain that processes smells – proving that new brain cell development is affected by environmental inputs and mediated across different brain areas. Food for thought for those researching the development and treatment of neurological diseases.

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.

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• Image from the Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
• Departments of Genetics and Development and of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University, NY,USA and Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
• Image copyright held by original authors
• Research published in Science, June 2017