Elsevier

Experimental Cell Research

Volume 253, Issue 2, 15 December 1999, Pages 733-736
Experimental Cell Research

Rapid Communication
Neural Stem Cells in the Adult Human Brain

https://doi.org/10.1006/excr.1999.4678Get rights and content

Abstract

New neurons are continuously generated in certain regions of the adult brain. Studies in rodents have shown that new neurons are generated from self-renewing multipotent neural stem cells. Here we demonstrate that both the lateral ventricle wall and the hippocampus of the adult human brain harbor self-renewing cells capable of generating neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes in vitro, i.e., bona fide neural stem cells.

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    Within these niches, the NSCs are largely quiescent; only entering the cell cycle in response to mitotic stimuli (e.g. brain injuries) to generate transit amplifying cells that would subsequently differentiate into neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes (Fig. 1). While the presence of NSCs and their key role in adult neurogenesis are well-documented in rodents, the existence of NSCs in the adult human brain remains controversial in part due to differences in the preparation and immunostaining procedures of brain tissues across laboratories [3–7]. Nonetheless, the observations that adult neurogenesis is impaired in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) [8] and Parkinson's disease [9], have strengthened the physiological relevance of NSCs in maintaining brain health over the lifespan of an organism.

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    This approach requires highly specialized infrastructure and protocols and is currently mastered by only one laboratory, but would be highly informative to explore also the adult human hypothalamic niche, provided that this region harbors sufficient levels of neurogenesis to be detected by this technique. Another widely used procedure to evaluate whether a brain region contains NSCs is the neurosphere assay, which probes in vitro the two cardinal properties of stem cells, i.e., self-renewal and multipotency, and has helped support neurogenesis in the SVZ and hippocampus of adult human subjects, even in old age (Johansson et al., 1999; Kukekov et al., 1999; Sanai et al., 2004; Hermann et al., 2006; Leonard et al., 2009). Most of these studies used intraoperative tissue specimens, which can be obtained relatively easily given the frequency of patients undergoing surgery for epilepsy, tumor, or vascular anomalies.

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