The researchers began by performing microarray (gene expression) analyses of postmortem brain cells from the DG of eight people, ages 33 to 88, all of whom were free of brain disease.
By now it has become clear that the tackles we cheer rend not just ligaments but brain cells from brain cells, causing life-long damage.
One novel approach that has gripped the public imagination is therapy aiming to regenerate healthy brain tissue using immature brain cells from embryos and fetuses.
Fifteen years ago, the neurobiologist Rusty Gage and his colleagues at the Salk Institute, in La Jolla, California, were studying neurogenesis, the development of adult brain cells from immature stem cells.
The aim in this study was to develop a robust, specific, new fluorescent probe for glioma cells that is easy to apply to live tumor biopsies and could identify tumor cells from normal brain cells at all levels of magnification.
And yet, packed into this relatively small bunch of brain cells are all the instructions for flight maneuvers.
Individual brain cells accumulate information from all active synapses and integrate this information over space and time, and if the total signal surpasses a set threshold the neuron will fire.
Although a variety of cell types are initially isolated from each brain region, the progenitor-like cells from all four regions are capable of considerable proliferation and, with limited serial passage, can be cultured as enriched populations of immature cells that are capable of differentiating into mature glia and neurons following density arrest and growth factor withdrawal.
"We don't have enough brain cells to put all over the brain," he said.
Heart cells, brain cells and liver cells all die when you try to keep them in a petri dish.
