Protein triggers nerve connections
By John Travis
From New Orleans, at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience
Neuroscientists are slowly learning that neurons aren’t the only stars in the brain. Instead, they’re part of an ensemble performance involving other types of brain cells collectively known as glia (SN: 4/7/01, p. 222: Available to subscribers at Gray Matters).
In particular, glia known as astrocytes make up about half the cells in the brain, although their exact role has remained murky. In 2001, a research group led by Ben Barres of Stanford University School of Medicine reported that astrocytes somehow enable nerve cells to form the specialized brain connections called synapses. Nerve cells grown without glial cells in the neighborhood develop far fewer synapses than normal, the scientists found.