Life or death: developing cortical interneurons make their own decision.
During nervous system development, programmed cell death is considered as an essential adaptive process. The mechanism by which the number of mature neurons is determined in the central nervous system is not well understood. In a recent Nature paper, Southwell et al (2012) demonstrate that cortical GABAergic interneuron cell death is intrinsically determined without the need to compete for extrinsic survival signals derived from other cell types.
Institute for Cell Engineering, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Juan
J
Song
Kimberly M
KM
Christian
Guo-li
GL
Ming
Hongjun
H
Song
D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D016923:Cell Death; D015509:Developmental Biology / Q000379:methods; D018682:GABA Agents / Q000378:metabolism; D017629:Gap Junctions; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D007395:Interneurons / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008954:Models, Biological; D008959:Models, Neurological; D019579:Neocortex / Q000378:metabolism; D009420:Nervous System / Q000196:embryology; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction
D018682:GABA Agents; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins