Strategies for promoting neural regeneration are hindered by the difficulty of manipulating desired neural fates in the brain without complex genetic methods. The subventricular zone (SVZ) is the largest germinal zone of the forebrain and is responsible for the lifelong generation of interneuron subtypes and oligodendrocytes. Here, we have performed a bioinformatics analysis of the transcriptom...

White matter dysfunction is an important part of many CNS disorders including multiple sclerosis (MS) and vascular dementia. Within injured areas, myelin loss and oligodendrocyte death may trigger endogenous attempts at regeneration. However, during disease progression, remyelination failure may eventually occur due to impaired survival/proliferation, migration/recruitment, and differentiation ...

Neural stem cells (NSCs) persist in defined brain niches, including the subventricular zone (SVZ), throughout adulthood and generate new neurons destined to support specific neurological functions. Whether brain diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) are associated with changes in adult NSCs and whether this might contribute to the development and/or persistence of neurological deficits remai...

Radiation therapy is a standard treatment for brain tumor patients. However, it comes with side effects, such as neurological deficits. While likely multi-factorial, the effect may in part be associated with the impact of radiation on the neurogenic niches. In the adult mammalian brain, the neurogenic niches are localized in the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles and the dentat...

Some mammals and birds independently evolved an enlarged telencephalon. They appear to have done so, at least in part, by developing a thick telencephalic subventricular zone (SVZ). We suggest that this correlation between telencephalic enlargement and SVZ expansion is due to a mechanical constraint acting on the proliferative ventricular zone (VZ). Essentially, we argue that rapid proliferatio...

Acute striatal lesions increase proliferation in the subventricular zone (SVZ) and induce migration of SVZ neuroblasts to the striatum. However, the potential of these cells to replace acutely degenerated neurons is controversial. The possible contribution of parenchymal progenitors to striatal lesion-induced neurogenesis has been poorly explored. Here, we present a detailed investigation of ne...

The adult subventricular zone (SVZ) is the main neurogenic niche in normal adult brains of mice and rats. Interferon gamma (IFNγ) has somewhat controversially been associated with SVZ progenitor proliferation and neurogenesis. The in vivo involvement of IFNγ in the physiology of the adult SVZ niche is not fully understood and its intracellular mediators are unknown. Here we show that IFNγ, thro...

Reactive astrocytes (RAs) have been reported to convert to multipotent neural stem cells (NSCs) capable of neurosphere (NS) formation and multilineage differentiation in vitro. Using genetic tagging, we determined that subventricular zone (SVZ) NSCs give rise to NSs derived from the stroke-injured cortex. We demonstrate that these cells can be isolated from the cortex in two different models of...

Progenitors in the telencephalic subventricular zone (SVZ) remain mitotically active throughout life, and produce different cell types at embryonic, postnatal and adult stages. Here we show that Mash1, an important proneural gene in the embryonic telencephalon, is broadly expressed in the postnatal SVZ, in progenitors for both neuronal and oligodendrocyte lineages. Moreover, Mash1 is required a...