The relationship of astrocytes to laminar boundaries in the adult brain was examined in a study published in the Journal of Comparitive Neurology. In this image, a protoplasmic astrocyte has been filled with a fluorescent dye (yellow) and the surrounding tissue is labeled for EphA4 (blue), revealing one of the laminar boundaries. The dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation is subdivided into distinct lamina, each containing afferents from different regions of the brain and each associated with distinctive biochemical markers. Some markers are associated with the synapses situated within each lamina (e.g., cholecystokinin and enkephalin), while other markers are molecules forming the extracellular matrix. Such boundaries exist throughout the brain and are important for organizing the connections with which populations of neurons communicate.

Links to Related NCMIR studies:

Astrocytes Limit CNS Regeneration

Astrocytes Change During Postnatal Brain Development