Gil-Perotín Sara, Alvarez-Buylla Arturo, García-Verdugo José Manuel
Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva, Valencia, Spain.
Adv Anat Embryol Cell Biol. 2009;203:1-101, ix.
Adult neurogenesis has been questioned for many years. In the early 1900s, a dogma was established that denied new neuron formation in the adult brain. In the last century, however, new discoveries have demonstrated the real existence of proliferation in the adult brain, and in the last decade, these studies led to the identification of neural stem cells in mammals. Adult neural stem cells are undifferentiated cells that are present in the adult brain and are capable of dividing and differentiating into glia and new neurons. Newly formed neurons terminally differentiate into mature neurons in the olfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Since then, a number of new research lines have emerged whose common objective is the phenotypical and molecular characterization of brain stem cells. As a result, new therapies are successfully being applied to animal models for certain neurodegenerative diseases or stroke. This work is being or will be extended to the adult human brain, and so it provides purpose and hope to all previous studies in this field. We are still far from clinical therapies because the mechanisms and functions of these cells are not completely understood, but we appear to be moving in the right direction.
成人神经发生多年来一直备受质疑。在20世纪初，形成了一种教条，即否认成人大脑中会形成新的神经元。然而，在上个世纪，新的发现证明了成人大脑中确实存在细胞增殖，并且在过去十年中，这些研究导致了哺乳动物神经干细胞的鉴定。成人神经干细胞是存在于成人大脑中的未分化细胞，能够分裂并分化为神经胶质细胞和新的神经元。新形成的神经元在嗅球和海马体的齿状回中终末分化为成熟神经元。从那时起，出现了许多新的研究方向，其共同目标是对脑干细胞进行表型和分子特征分析。因此，新的疗法已成功应用于某些神经退行性疾病或中风的动物模型。这项工作正在或将扩展到成人大脑，因此它为该领域以前的所有研究提供了目标和希望。我们距离临床治疗仍很遥远，因为这些细胞的机制和功能尚未完全了解，但我们似乎正朝着正确的方向前进。
