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Neurogenesis

VEGF — a route to new neurons

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 5, page 671 (2004)Cite this article

In adult mammals, the subgranular zone of the hippocampus is one of the most active sites of continuing neurogenesis, and the rate of neurogenesis can be increased by various manipulations, including exercise, environmental enrichment and the performance of hippocampus-dependent tasks such as the Morris water maze. Peripheral VEGF has previously been implicated in the ability of exercise to drive neurogenesis, so Cao et al. investigated whether it, or other growth factors, might be produced in the hippocampus of rats and drive neurogenesis induced by hippocampal activity or environmental enrichment.

VEGF was the only growth factor tested that showed an increase in expression in the hippocampus of rats that had either been housed in an enriched environment or trained and tested on the Morris water maze. When the authors used recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors to induce overexpression of VEGF in the rat hippocampus, the rats performed better in learning and memory tests, and also showed increased angiogenesis and neurogenesis in the hippocampus. Overexpression of placental growth factor (PGF) also caused increased angiogenesis, but had no effect on learning or on neurogenesis, supporting the idea that VEGF acts directly on neuronal precursors as well as on vascular endothelial cells. The authors also showed that knocking down expression of VEGF using specific small hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) prevented the induction of neurogenesis by an enriched environment.

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References

ORIGINAL REFERENCE PAPER

  1. Cao, L. et al. VEGF links hippocampal acticity with neurogenesis, learning and memory. Nature Genet. 36, 827–835 (2004)

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FURTHER READING

  1. van Praag, H. et al. Neural consequences of environmental enrichment. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 1, 191–198 (2000)

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Authors
  1. Rachel Jones
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Jones, R. VEGF — a route to new neurons. Nat Rev Neurosci 5, 671 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1502

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1502

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