| Most neurons in CNS are terminally differentiated and are, thus, not replaced after neuronal cell death. However, self-renewing cells with multilineage potential, designated stem cells or progenitor cells, have been identified in both developing and adult brain in mammals. This finding raises the possibility that human neurons depleted by disease or injury could be replenished. At present, there are two active directions which have been studied in terms of using neural stem cells (NSCs) or neural progenitor cells (NPCs): 1) Isolate NSCs/NPCs from fetal or adult brain, expand, engineer them in vitro and then transplant them back to the injured brain. 2) Induce endogenous NSCs/NPCs to proliferate and differentiate in vivo to achieve self-repair. In the past decade, both subfields have attracted a large number of investigators and both have got promising results, especially in rodent. But when it comes to human being, the first group met with several difficulties ranging from ethical concerns to limited supply. So, it will be of great value to find out drugs that can affect the proliferation and /or differentiation ability of NPCs both in vitro and in vivo.Ginseng has been used as a tonic in Chinese traditional medicine for over two thousand years. It has been proved to have various pharmacological actions on the CNS including nootropic and anti-aging effects. Ginsenoside Rg 1 is one of the most active ingredients in ginseng and shares many of its effects, such as facilitating learning, memory and alleviating age related decline of functions. In our previous studies, Rgl was found to accelerate protein biosynthesis, enhance the thickness of cortex and the density of synapses in rodent brain. As all above effects of Rgl had something to do with brain plasticity and the existence of NPCs in brain is also a new mechanism underlying functional plasticity of brain, it is possible that...
|
PDF Full Text Request