Postnatal neurogenesis in region of hippocampus mapped on single-cell level

A new paper from the Sten Linnarsson group (Karolinska Institutet/SciLifeLab) reveals that murine neurogenesis in the hippocampus proceeds through distinct stages, from the first weeks after birth into adulthood.

The dentate gyrus, part of the hippocampus, is involved in learning, episodic memory formation and spatial coding. It is known as a brain region in which neurogenesis, i.e. the formation neurons from neural stem cells, continues into adulthood. Using large-scale single-cell RNA sequencing, the current study is able to pinpoint separate stages of the neurogenesis process in mice, discarding the idea of the process involving a continuum of molecular states.

Through the comparison of cells across time from embryonic stages to 132 days after birth, the data also uncover markers with high specificity of each cellular state of neurogenesis, as well as showing their spatial distribution during the hippocampus development.

Read the full paper in Nature Neuroscience