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Article: GENE GUIDES NEURONS ON FANTASTIC VOYAGE BRAIN CELLS MIGRATE FROM CRADLE TO WORK STATION, WITH PUTATIVE THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- July 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A newborn human infant comes into the world still lacking some of the bells and whistles it will need as it grows up.
Take fetal hemoglobin, for example. It nourishes the growing embryo and fetus with oxygen, but hangs in there after the baby is born, and takes several months to be almost entirely replaced by post-natal hemoglobins.
Neonatal rats and mice emerge from gestation with their eyes shut tight, and the neocortex of their brains two weeks shy of full formation. But in human newborns, the time it takes brain neurons to go from point of origin to their mission control center is considerably greater - more like two months.
"Scientists ...