Nervous Start

We’re all adrenaline junkies. We rely on the buzz it brings during moments of intense activity, and its guiding influence over our body’s daily rhythms. Any glitches in its production can have major health impacts so there’s lots to be gained by understanding how the adrenal gland – the hormone factory that sits on the kidneys – is constructed. Early in human development, cells from a variety of places come together to form the gland, and now we know that some zoom into place along a highway of nerves like those highlighted in pink in this developing mouse embryo. They take a temporary form as cells (stained cyan) that typically develop into Schwann cells, which are found wrapped around nerves all over our body. It’s only when they arrive at their destination that they evolve into their final form, ready to give you a burst of adrenaline when the occasion demands.

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 provided courtesy of Igor Adameyko, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
• Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Science, July 2017