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Regenerating your senses: multiple roles for neurogenesis in the adult brain

Nature Neuroscience volume 11, pages 1124–1126 (2008)Cite this article

The adult mouse brain continuously supplies new neurons to the olfactory bulb and hippocampus. A new study in this issue shows that ongoing neurogenesis is essential for maintenance of the olfactory bulb and for spatial memory.

Imayoshi et al.3 drew these conclusions on the basis of an elegant transgenic strategy that they used to permanently label and then deplete stem cell–generated progeny in the adult brain. Specifically, the authors generated mice in which a tamoxifen-inducible Cre recombinase (CreERT2) was expressed under the promoter for the neural precursor marker nestin. Using these mice, they first asked how many new stem cell–derived neurons were added to the adult brain. To do this, they crossed their mice with various reporter lines and induced recombinase activity in adults with tamoxifen, thereby efficiently (up to 87%) expressing the reporters in neural stem cells (NSCs) and their progeny. Initially, the authors followed the differentiation, migration and maturation of new neurons in the olfactory bulb. Previous work has shown that neurons are generated from NSCs in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricles and that these neurons migrate to the olfactory bulb, where they mature and acquire features of mature granule neurons after about 1 month4,5. The authors' new inducible transgenic approach confirmed this earlier work and led to the conclusion that almost the entire granule cell population was replaced by new neurons over a 12-month period. The rate of neuronal replacement was nearly linear for the first 6 months, with a decrease in the pace of addition from 6–12 months, potentially reflecting a decline in olfactory neurogenesis in middle age and beyond. The exception to this almost complete replacement was in the superficial layers, where only half of the neurons were labeled, suggesting that there is at least one subpopulation of persistent granule cells in the olfactory bulb.

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Figure 1: Two functions for adult neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb and hippocampus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Paul W. Frankland is in the Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, and Freda D. Miller is in the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X8. paul.frankland@sickkids.ca or fredam@sickkids.ca,

    Paul W Frankland & Freda D Miller

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Frankland, P., Miller, F. Regenerating your senses: multiple roles for neurogenesis in the adult brain. Nat Neurosci 11, 1124–1126 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1008-1124

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