{"id":4653,"date":"2018-07-27T11:41:25","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T15:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neuroscience\/?p=4653"},"modified":"2018-07-27T11:41:25","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T15:41:25","slug":"song-lab-publishes-in-neuron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/neuroscience\/song-lab-publishes-in-neuron\/","title":{"rendered":"Song Lab Publishes in Neuron"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UNC School of Medicine neuroscientist Juan Song, PhD, and colleagues show how specific brain cells communicate with adult neural stem cells, a discovery that could open new investigations into potential treatments for some neurological disorders and brain injuries.<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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A small population of brain cells deep in a memory-making region of the brain controls the production of new neurons and may have a role in common brain disorders, according to a study from scientists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

The scientists, who published their work in Neuron<\/i><\/a>, showed that \u201cmossy cells\u201d in the hippocampus regulate local stem cells to control their production of new neurons, which is important for normal learning and memory, stress response, and mood regulation. Such neurogenesis in the adult brain is disrupted in many common conditions including Alzheimer\u2019s disease, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury, and some forms of epilepsy. Targeting mossy cells to reverse such disruption may therefore offer a new strategy for treating these conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hope is we could manipulate even a small number of mossy cells to restore hippocampal neurogenesis and related brain functions,\u201d said study senior author Juan Song, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and member of the UNC Neuroscience Center.<\/p>\n

Mossy cells are themselves a type of neuron and live in the part of the hippocampus known as the dentate gyrus, where neural stem cells also reside. These mossy cells \u2013 and the nerve fibers that input various chemical signals to them \u2013 earned their name because their multiple connection points give them a vaguely moss-covered appearance. Their precise functions have long been debated in part because they\u2019re not easy to distinguish from other brain cells. But mossy cells are known to be important for learning and memory and unusually sensitive to stresses. They die off quickly, for example, under the low-oxygen conditions of a stroke or heart attack, or when overstimulated by seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy.<\/p>\n

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This confocal image shows the mossy cell commissural projections (red) and neural stem cells (in green) in the adult mouse dentate gyrus<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/dt>\n
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Using advanced tracing techniques on several different strains of genetically engineered lab mice, Song and colleagues labeled mossy cells in mouse hippocampi and marked their connections to other brain cells. They found that mossy cells connected to neural stem cells directly and indirectly. These mossy cells directly communicate with stem cells in the hippocampus via an excitatory pathway. The mossy cells also indirectly communicate with stem cells through nearby neurons called interneurons that then connect to stem cells via an inhibitory pathway.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Song and her team discovered that mossy cells can shift the balance of their direct and indirect signaling, thus dynamically regulating neural stem cell activity. In their experiments, Song\u2019s team found that moderate mossy cell activity, for example, resulted in the dominance of indirect signaling and kept stem cells in a \u201cquiescent\u201d state that may lead to a low level of neurogenesis, but the stem cells could be preserved over the long term. In contrast, high mossy cell activity, which could occur when the brain is stimulated or in a diseased state, made direct signaling dominant and kept stem cells in an \u201cactivated\u201d state that may lead to a high level of neurogenesis. But this may risk losing stem cells over the long term.<\/p>\n

The scientists observed that removing a portion of mossy cells caused neural stem cells to increase their activity briefly followed by a permanent loss of stem cells. The finding hints that the abnormal loss of mossy cells may be a key factor underlying many pathological conditions where neurogenesis is deficient. This suggests replacing or otherwise altering the activity of these mossy cells could be a viable treatment strategy, according to Song.<\/p>\n

The experiments also indicated that for mossy cells, a few cells go a long way. In a key set of experiments, the researchers were able to label only about a quarter of the mossy cell population. Yet by manipulating the activity level of these few cells, the scientists observed large changes in hippocampal stem cell activity and neurogenesis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were surprised that this small population of mossy cells could exert such a big impact on stem cell behavior,\u201d Song said.<\/p>\n

Song and her team will now make use of the tools and lessons developed in this study to examine what happens to mossy cells in various disease states and how they might be replaced or have their activity altered to treat those diseases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re beginning to look at how this cell population is changed in Alzheimer\u2019s disease, for example,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the American Heart Association, the Whitehall Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Synapsis Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n

Other authors of the <\/i>Neuron paper were UNC postdoctoral fellows Chia-Yu Yeh, PhD, and Hechen Bao, PhD; UNC assistant research professor Brent Ariscan, PhD; UNC Neuroscience graduate student Luis Quintanilla; former postdoc Ting He, PhD; all from the Song lab; as well as NIH scientists Xia Mao, PhD, and Wei Lu, PhD; and scientists from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland Jonathan Moss, PhD, Frederic Casse, PhD, Elias Gebara, PhD, and Nicolas Toni, PhD. <\/i><\/p>\n

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Media contact: Mark Derewicz, 984-974-1915, mark.derewicz@unchealth.unc.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNC School of Medicine neuroscientist Juan Song, PhD, and colleagues show how specific brain cells communicate with adult neural stem cells, a discovery that could open new investigations into potential treatments for some neurological disorders and brain injuries. 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