Continuing for months after birth, armies of neurons migrate through a baby’s brain, until they reach their destination. Now researchers have had the best look yet at how these cells move in human brains.
Eric Huang at the University of California, San Francisco, and his team looked at the brains of infants who had died because of heart defects and other problems unrelated to their brains. They took thin slices of the brains and kept the cells alive in a dish for up to two days.
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By using antibodies that bind to particular types of neurons, Huang’s team found that most of the migrating cells in babies are a type called inhibitory neurons. These cells“turn down” the activity of other neurons – the opposite of excitory brain cells which make other neurons more likely to fire.
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It is possible that epilepsy is caused by inhibitory neurons failing to work properly, while autism has also been linked to a lack of balance between these cells and excitatory neurons.
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