Melzack & Katz, Pain. Part 14d: Brain glia are from neuroectoderm and PNS glia are from neural crest

The paper, Pain

Most recent blogposts:

Part 14: Side trip out to the periphery! Part 14b: Prevention of pain neurotags is WAY easier than cure Part 14c: PW Nathan was an interesting pain researcher

SEE ALL PREVIOUS BLOGPOSTS IN THIS SERIES LISTED AT THE END

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Foggy island resting spot

As promised, a brief interlude to deepen understanding information about glia and such. 

Brain glia are not from neural crest

I found out something important (important to me, at least, because I sustained a mild case of cognitive dissonance-itis over it...) yesterday as I dug through books and papers. I used to think astroglia and oligodendrocytes, etc., in the brain, came from neural crest, because, when you look at a list of neural crest derivatives, you see the word "glia." 

For example, from Bhatt et al, 

"Cranial NCCs differentiate primarily into bone, cartilage, and connective tissues, but they also generate neurons and glia. In contrast, trunk NCCs give rise primarily to sensory neurons and glia that are central to formation of the peripheral nervous system."

My bold, which is what my confirmation bias had picked up on, ran with for years, and why I subsequently found myself confused. 

It turns out brain glia (e.g., astrocytes) don't come from neural crest, they come from neuroectoderm. It might not seem like that big a deal, but it's important to me, because it means they likely are less related to neural crest than teeth are. It means that teeth and face bones and throat cartilage and brain meninges are probably more related to the peripheral sensory afferent and autonomic efferent nervous system than central nervous system glia are. Presuming cellular relatedness matters. So I stand corrected. 

According to Kessaris et al (full access), 

"All the neurons and glial cells of the central nervous system are generated from the neuroepithelial cells in the walls of the embryonic neural tube, the ‘embryonic neural stem cells’. The stem cells seem to be equivalent to the so-called ‘radial glial cells’, which for many years had been regarded as a specialized type of glial cell. These radial cells generate different classes of neurons in a position-dependent manner. They then switch to producing glial cells (oligodendrocytes and astrocytes). It is not known what drives the neuron–glial switch, although downregulation of pro-neural basic helix–loop–helix transcription factors is one important step. This drives the stem cells from a neurogenic towards a gliogenic mode. The stem cells then choose between developing as oligodendrocytes or astrocytes, of which there might be intrinsically different subclasses. This review focuses on the different extracellular signals and intracellular responses that influence glial generation and the choice between oligodendrocyte and astrocyte fates."

Nicoletta Kessaris, Nigel Pringle, William D Richardson;  Specification of CNS glia from neural stem cells in the embryonic neuroepithelium. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 12 January 2008 vol. 363 no. 1489 71-85

From Facebook, today. 

All the other books and papers I cracked yesterday said the same thing. Once that neural tube closes, that's it. Anything cranial that is tagged "neural crest" mostly ends up as meninges or bone or teeth or cartilage in the throat. Some of it gets into the brain, but doesn't turn into glia; it contributes to ganglia for certain (sensory) cranial nerves. 

See more references at the end of the blogpost.

Wave after wave

Anyway, here's the cool way it all unfolds, according to Bhatt et al..  

"During normal mammalian embryogenesis, neural crest cell induction and delamination begin at the level of the midbrain and continue as a wave that extends progressively caudal toward the tail." 

Midbrain. 

"Waves" of neural crest cells detach and travel toward targets attracted by morphogens which set up irresistible chemo-gradients. Remember Peggy Mason? Here is what she says about morphogens (in a teeny sidebar):

"Morphogens are substances that spread by diffusion from a localized source and govern the embryological development and patterning of organs and body parts. Their effects depend on their concentrations - often so that high and low concentrations exert opposite effects. Among several morphogens involved in the patterning of the human nervous system, the protein sonic hedgehog plays an important role at very early stages. For example sonic hedgehog is expressed by the notochord when the dorsal-ventral differentiation of the neural tube begins. It also acts at later stages to guide axonal growth, attracting outgrowing axons in low concentrations, and repelling them in high concentrations (as shown for retinal ganglion cell axons growing from the eye toward the brain)." 

There are scads more of those, and scads of info about them, but we need to move along, pick up where we left off - I choose to pick up the story of astrocytes, because of all the very very cool research recently on those particular glia, and how they might be connected to pain. So, next post will be about astrocytes. 

............

Previous blogposts

Part 1 First two sentences Part 2 Pain is personal Also Pain is Personal addendum., Neurotags! Pain is Personal, Always.

Part 3a Pain is more than sensation: Backdrop Part 3b Pain is not receptor stimulation Part 3c: Pain depends on everything ever experienced by an individual

Part 4: Pain is a multidimensional experience across time

Part 5: Pain and purpose

Part 6a: Descartes and his era; Part 6b: History of pain - what’s in “Ref 4”?; Part 6c: History of pain, Ref 4, cont.. : There is no pain matrix, only a neuromatrix; Part 6d: History of Pain: Final takedown Part 6e: Pattern theories in the history of pain Part 6f: Evaluation of pain theories Part 6g: History of Pain, the cautionary tale. Part 6h: Gate Control Theory.

Part 7: Gate control theory has stood the test of time: Patrick David Wall;  Part 7b: Gate control: "The theory was a leap of faith but it was right!"

Part 8: Beyond the gate: Self as mayor Part 8b: 3-ring circus of self Part 8c: Getting objective about subjectivity

Part 9: Phantom pain - in the brain! Part 9b: Dawn of the Neuromatrix model Part 9c: Neuromatrix: MORE than just spinal projection areas in thalamus and cortex Part 9d: More about phantom body pain in paraplegics

Part 10: "We don't need a body to feel a body." Part 10b: Conclusion1: The brain generates its own experience of being in a body Part 10c:Conclusion 2: Your brain, not your body, tells you what you're feeling Part 10d: Conclusion 3: The brain's sense of "Self" can INclude missing parts, or EXclude actual parts, of the biological body Part 10e: The neural network that both comprises and moves "Self" is (only)modified by sensory experience
Part 11: We need a new conceptual brain model! Part 11b: Intro to a new conceptual nervous system Part 11c: Older brain models just don't cut it Part 11d: The NEW brain model!

Part 12: Action! 12b: Examining the motor system, first pass. 12c: Motor output and nervous systems - where they EACH came from Part 12d... deeper and deeper into basal ganglia Part 12e: Still awfully deep in basal ganglia Part 12f: Surfacing out of basal ganglia Part 12g: The Action-Neuromatrix 

Part 13: Pain and Neuroplasticity Part 13b: Managing neuroplasticity

Nicoletta Kessaris, Nigel Pringle, William D Richardson; Specification of CNS glia from neural stem cells in the embryonic neuroepithelium. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 12 January 2008 vol. 363 no. 1489 71-85 (full access)

Arnold Kriegstein and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla; The Glial Nature of Embryonic and Adult Neural Stem Cells Annu Rev Neurosci. 2009; 32: 149–184.(full access)

Xiao Huang, Jean-Pierre Saint-Jeannet; Induction of the neural crest and the opportunities of life on the edge. Developmental Biology Volume 275, Issue 1, 1 November 2004, Pages 1–11 (full access)

Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Müller; The development of the neural crest in the human J Anat. 2007 September; 211(3): 335–351. (full access)

Bhatt S, Diaz R, Trainor PA; Signals and switches in Mammalian neural crest cell differentiation. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2013 Feb 1;5(2). (abstract)