Development of the adult olfactory system of the moth Manduca sexta depends on reciprocal interactions between olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) axons growing in from the periphery and centrally-derived glial cells. Early-arriving ORN axons induce a subset of glial cells to proliferate and migrate to form an axon-sorting zone, in which later-arriving ORN axons will change their axonal neighbors a...

background: alzheimer’s disease (ad) is characterized by progressive neuronal loss in hippocamp. epidermal neural crest stem cells (epi-ncsc) can differentiate into neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of transplanting epi-ncsc into ad rat model. methods: two weeks after induction of ad by injection of amyloid-β 1-40 into ca1 area of ra...

PURPOSE Glial cells are structurally and functionally linked to neuronal tissues. Pathologically, the cells may be activated and characterized by increased size and number and altered cellular properties. In glaucoma, pathologic mechanisms within the anterior optic nerve may include glial activation. This study examines morphologic changes of glial cells in the retinas of glaucomatous eyes comp...

The presence on glial cells of receptors for neurotransmitters suggests the capability of neuron-to-glial signalling. Here, we asked whether the retinal transmitter, glutamate, may serve as a mitogenic signal for human retinal glial cells. Using cultured glial from the adult postmortem retina, we found that glutamate stimulated the proliferation of these glial cells. Pharmacological experiments...

Microglia are believed to be the only resident immune cells in the CNS, originating from hematopoietic-derived myeloid cells and invading the CNS during development. However, the detailed mechanisms of differentiation and transformation of microglial cells are not fully understood. Here, we demonstrate that murine microglial cells show two morphological forms in vitro, namely, small round cells...

Objective: Neuronal and Mixed Neuronal-glial Tumors of the Central Nervous System are frequently encountered in the neurosurgical practice. Differentiation of neuronal tumors from the more common glial tumors is crucial because neuronal tumors have favorable clinical outcomes and are generally curable with total surgical resection alone, whereas gliomas typically require further chemoradiothera...

Glial cells, traditionally viewed as passive elements in the CNS, are now known to have many essential functions. Many of these functions have been revealed by work on retinal glial cells. This work has been conducted almost exclusively on ex vivo preparations and it is essential that retinal glial cell functions be characterized in vivo as well. To this end, we describe an in vivo rat preparat...

Bilaterians usually possess a central nervous system, composed of neurons and supportive cells called glial cells. Whereas neuronal cells are highly comparable in all these animals, glial cells apparently differ, and in deuterostomes, radial glial cells are found. These particular secretory glial cells may represent the archetype of all (macro) glial cells and have not been reported from protos...

NG2-expressing neural progenitor cells (i.e., NG2 glial cells) maintain their proliferative and migratory activities even in the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) and produce myelinating oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. Although NG2 glial cells have been observed in close proximity to neuronal cell bodies in order to receive synaptic inputs, substantive non-proliferative roles of NG2...

Astrocyte-like glial cells are abundant in the central nervous system of adult Drosophila and exhibit morphology similar to astrocytes of mammals. Previous evidence has shown that astrocyte-like glial cells are strongly associated with synapses in the antennal lobe (AL), the first relay of the olfactory system, where olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) transmit information into projection neurons...