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Neurogenesis

Does age matter?

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 8, page 8 (2007)Cite this article

In a series of experiments in mice, Laplagne et al. used double retroviral labelling so that neural progenitor cells born perinatally were labelled with a green fluorescent marker, whereas cells born in adulthood were labelled red. When the mice were 19 weeks old and all labelled neurons had matured, electrophysiological recordings revealed that evoked excitatory postsynaptic currents in red-labelled neurons were comparable to those in neighbouring green-labelled neurons. These currents were blocked by glutamate receptor antagonists, indicating that old and young mature granule cells received similar glutamatergic input from the entorhinal cortex. Likewise, inhibitory postsynaptic currents did not differ between neurons of different ages, suggesting similar GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid)-mediated afferent connectivity with interneurons.

Finally, the authors showed that firing behaviour in response to an excitatory stimulus was comparable in mature neurons born in adulthood and those born during development, indicating that excitatory input was integrated in a similar way in both types of neurons. Taken together, these results indicate that mature adult-born and perinatally born mouse hippocampal neurons have similar inhibitory/excitatory input balance and firing behaviours and in these respects form a homogeneous population.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS

  1. Laplagne, D. A. et al. Functional convergence of neurons generated in the developing and adult hippocampus. PLOS Biol. 4, e409 (2006)

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  2. Ramirez-Amaya, V. et al. Integration of new neurons into functional neural networks. J. Neurosci. 26, 12237–12242 (2006)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Nithianantharajah, J. & Hannan, A. J. Enriched environments, experience-dependent plasticity and disorders of the nervous system. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 7, 697–709 (2006)

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Authors
  1. Leonie Welberg
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Welberg, L. Does age matter?. Nat Rev Neurosci 8, 8 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2066

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2066

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