Homeostatic interplay between electrical activity and neuronal apoptosis in the developing neocortex / 基础医学与临床

ABSTRACT

An interesting feature of neural development in most animal species is that the number of neurons ini-tially produced is greater than the number of neurons belonging to the mature circuits. In the first two weeks of life, a significant number of neurons are eliminated in a short period through apoptosis. Although we have been very clear that in the peripheral nervous system(PNS),neurotrophic factors and apoptosis play an important role in controlling the neurons survival, but the situation in central nervous system (CNS) remains unknown. In the rodent cortex, the peak of apoptosis coincides with spontaneous, synchronous neural activity pattern. In this arti-cle, we review the recent research results which proved the important role of electrical activity in the brain cortex neuron survival, described the function of Ca2+and neurotrophic factors in translating electrical activity into pro-survival signals, and finally discuss the clinical impact of the tight relation between electrical activity and apopto-sis of neurons.