Studies of Adult Neural Stem Cell Migration

Adult neural progenitors originating is the subventricular zone (SVZ) proceed toward the olfactory bulb (OB) along a peculiar path of migration known as the rostral migratory stream. Once reaching the inner core of the bulb, neuroblasts migrate radially to various layers of the adult OB where they differentiate into local interneurons. We recently demonstrated that this latter form of migration is guided by blood vessels that serve as a scaffold for neural progenitor migration to their respective OB layers. Migration of progenitors along blood vessels can be visualized by time-lapse confocal imaging, which requires labeling of both migrating cells and blood vessels. In this article, we describe procedures to label neural progenitors in adult through in vivo stereotaxic cell tracer injection into the SVZ, and to visualize blood vessels through luminal filling with stabilized fluorescent dyes. Moreover, we illustrate the methods for acute brain slices preparation for imaging and procedures used during confocal time-lapse imaging to follow the movement of adult neural progenitors along blood vessels.