Neural stem cells: The basic biology and prospects for brain repair

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are multipotential progenitor cells that have self-renewal activities. A single NSC is capable of generating various kinds of cells within the CNS, including neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Because of these characteristics, there is an increasing interest in NSCs and neural progenitor cells from the aspects of both basic developmental biology and therapeutic applications for damaged brain. By understanding the nature of NSCs present in the CNS, extracellular factors and signal transduction cascades involved in the differentiation and maintenance of NSCs, population dynamics and localization of NSCs in embryonic and adult brains, prospective identification and isolation of NSCs, and induction of NSCs into particular neuronal phenotypes, it would be possible to develop a feasible strategy to manipulate cells in situ to treat damaged brain.