Imaging new neurons in vivo: a pioneering tool to study the cellular biology of depression?
✍ Scribed by Benedikt Römer; Alexander Sartorius; Dragos Inta; Barbara Vollmayr; Peter Gass
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 108 KB
- Volume
- 30
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0265-9247
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Hippocampal neurogenesis has been implicated in the pathogenesis of and recovery from depression. However, most of the underlying studies were endpoint investigations in experimental animals yielding conflicting results, and it has been under debate to which extent these results could be transferred to human patients. Now, researchers have developed a powerful new tool to address these questions by a non‐invasive method in humans and animals in vivo, using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to detect a biomarker for proliferating progenitor cells that give rise to new neurons.1 This makes it possible to study the role of neural progenitor cells in a wide variety of human brain disorders. BioEssays 30:806–810, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.