Scientists found Glia cells for brain's development

A new study has come up with discovering a new source for the development of the brain. Researchers during study have discovered an unexpected source for the brain's development, this offers new insights into the building of the nervous system, according to the new research published in the Journal Science.

 The new found thing is glia, a collection of non-neuronal cells that had long been regarded as passive support cells, in fact are vital to nerve-cell development in the brain.

Vilaiwan Fernandes, a postdoctoral fellow at New York University in the US said "The results lead us to revise the often neuro-centric view of brain development to now appreciate the contributions for non-neuronal cells such as glia,"  He further added that "Indeed, our study found that fundamental questions in brain development with regard to the timing, identity, and coordination of nerve cell birth can only be understood when the glial contribution is accounted for,".

The brain is made up of two broad cell types, nerve cellsor neurons and glia, which are non-nerve cells that make upmore than half the volume of the brain. Neurobiologists have tended to focus on the former because these are the cells that form networks that process information. However, given the preponderance of glia in the brain's cellular make-up, the researchers hypothesised that theycould play a fundamental part in brain development.

The species serves as a powerful model organism for this line of study because its visual system, like the one inhumans, holds repeated mini-circuits that detect and processlight over the entire visual field. This dynamic is of particular interest to scientists because, as the brain develops, it must coordinate the increase of neurons in the retina with other neurons indistant regions of the brain. Researchers found that the coordination of nerve-cell development is achieved through a population of glia, which relays cues from the retina to the brain to make cells in the brain become nerve cells.