Inflammation for Regeneration
The secret to zebrafish’s remarkable capacity for repairing their brains is inflammation, according to a report published online in Science. Neural stem cells in the fish’s brains express a receptor for inflammatory signaling molecules, which prompt the cells to multiply and develop into new neurons.
“This is a very interesting paper,” said Guo-li Ming, a professor of neurology and neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study. “It is well known that fish have this ability to self-repair, and this paper provides a mechanism,” she said.
Zebrafish, like many other vertebrates, are able to regenerate a variety of body tissues, including their brains. In fact, said Michael Brand, a professor of developmental genetics at the Technische Universität in Dresden, Germany, “mammals are the ones that seem to have lost this ability—they are kind of the odd ones out.” Given the therapeutic potential of neuron regeneration for patients with brain or spinal injuries, “we’d like to figure out if we can somehow reactivate this potential in humans,” Brand said.
