Embryonic Neural Stem Cell Differentiation to Aldynoglia Induced by Olfactory Bulb Ensheathing Cell-Conditioned Medium

Abstract

Although the relevance of glial cells in regulating brain activity was predicted by Ramon y Cajal more than a century ago (García-Marín et al., 2007), it was not until almost fifty years ago that initial descriptions of a close functional relationship between neuroglia and neuronal perikarya (Hyden, 1962) or axonal processes (Blunt et al, 1965) began to reveal that neurons and glial cells operate as functional units in the central nervous system (CNS). However, this functional interaction has only been more carefully studied and analysed in the last few decades, generating a substantial increase in research on the roles of neuron– glia interactions in the control of brain function. Glial cells have subsequently been implicated in many functions, including: guiding the migration of neurons in early development, axonal guidance and being responsible for their integrity, forming the necessary scaffold for neuronal architecture and neural protection and proliferation by trophic effects, modulating neurodegenerative processes, and also being critical participants in synaptic transmission, and key regulators of neurotransmitter release...