(Medical Xpress)—A recent perspective paper published in Science has raised some important, and timely, questions regarding neural diversity. The authors, from Columbia, MIT, and New York University, would simply like to know how many kinds of neurons exist in the brain. For scientists who study glial cells, it may be enough to have a single named class of neuron, but the researchers here all study motorneurons of one kind or another. In particular, they are interested in treating neurodegenerative diseases, which often have clear motor deficits as their major pathology. To treat these diseases, researchers are attempting to differentiate embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into particular cell subtypes that could be used to restore normal function. As the authors observe, it would be handy if we could constrain the enormous range of biochemical, morphological and electrophysiological peculiarities that neurons display, into well-defined categories that could be referred to by name.
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