Römer Benedikt, Sartorius Alexander, Inta Dragos, Vollmayr Barbara, Gass Peter
Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Bioessays. 2008 Sep;30(9):806-10. doi: 10.1002/bies.20800.
Hippocampal neurogenesis has been implicated in the pathogenesis of and recovery from depression. However, most of the underlying studies were endpoint investigations in experimental animals yielding conflicting results, and it has been under debate to which extent these results could be transferred to human patients. Now, researchers have developed a powerful new tool to address these questions by a non-invasive method in humans and animals in vivo, using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to detect a biomarker for proliferating progenitor cells that give rise to new neurons. This makes it possible to study the role of neural progenitor cells in a wide variety of human brain disorders.
海马体神经发生与抑郁症的发病机制及恢复有关。然而，大多数相关基础研究都是对实验动物进行的终点调查，结果相互矛盾，这些结果在多大程度上可以应用于人类患者一直存在争议。现在，研究人员开发了一种强大的新工具，通过非侵入性方法在人类和动物体内解决这些问题，利用磁共振波谱检测产生新神经元的增殖祖细胞的生物标志物。这使得研究神经祖细胞在多种人类脑部疾病中的作用成为可能。
