Types and Functions of Glia

• Astrocyte (Astroglia): Star-shaped cells that provide physical and nutritional support for neurons: 1) clean up brain "debris"; 2) transport nutrients to neurons; 3) hold neurons in place; 4) digest parts of dead neurons; 5) regulate content of extracellular space
• Microglia: Like astrocytes, microglia digest parts of dead neurons.
• Oligodendroglia: Provide the insulation (myelin) to neurons in the central nervous system.
• Satellite Cells: Physical support to neurons in the peripheral nervous system.
• Schwann Cells: Provide the insulation (myelin) to neurons in the peripheral nervous system.

By Melissa Lee Phillips Neuroscience for Kids Consultant May 21, 2002 Nerve cells (neurons) and glial cells (glia) are the two major types of cells present in the nervous system. For many years, glial cells were thought to only support the activities of neurons. Researchers thought that astrocytes -- glial cells named for their star-like appearance -- had only a supportive role in the central nervous system. It is well established that astrocytes help form a network on which neurons grow. Astrocytes fill in the space between neurons, take up neurotransmitters that are released by neurons, and help maintain the correct chemical concentrations around neurons.

Astrocyte Image courtesy of Biodidac

Within the past few years, however, attention has focused on the role of astrocytes in adult neurogenesis. Neurogenesis, the growth of new neurons from neural stem cells, has recently been shown to occur in adult mammals. In adults -- including humans -- neurogenesis has been observed in two specific areas: the subventricular zone (the area immediately surrounding the brain's ventricles) and the hippocampus. A study by researchers at the Salk Institute in California shows that astrocytes play a more important and active role in neurogenesis than previously thought. The researchers took stem cells from the hippocampus of adult rats and engineered these cells so that they would express a green fluorescent protein (GFP). The GFP makes it easy to see these cells and all of the cells' offspring...it's a bit like making the cells wear a glow-in-the-dark shirt. The stem cells were cultured with astrocytes from the hippocampus of newborn rats. The scientists found that neurogenesis was about eight times higher in cells that were cultured with astrocytes compared to those that were cultured without astrocytes. This increase in neurogenesis is consistent with previous studies. In those studies, however, it was unclear whether the astrocytes simply provided an environment that encouraged the survival and division of neural stem cells or if the astrocytes actually caused cells to become neurons. In this experiment, the researchers found that not only were more stem cells growing and maturing, but that the cells actually became neurons (instead of glia) about six times as often when they were in an astrocyte-enriched environment.
Research involving stem cells is promising because it has the potential to develop new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. If scientists can engineer stem cells to grow into neurons -- perhaps involving signals from astrocytes -- they might be able to repair or even prevent damage caused by these diseases.

1. Reference: Song, H., Stevens, C.F., and Gage, F.H., "Astroglia induce neurogenesis from adult neural stem cells," Nature, Vol. 417, May 2, 2002, pp. 39-44.
2. Svendsen, C.N., "The amazing astrocyte," Nature, Vol. 417, May 2, 2002, pp. 39-44.

Labels: Glia cells, Neuroscience for kids

Kind of ironic that the person in charge of social media marketing for Mind Alive Inc. would post about how Social Media is ruining our minds. Given how much younger generations use social media to do business or to keep in touch with friends, I can see some validity to their claims. Social Media and information in byte sizes aren't going away, so what can we do to help people, especially students, extend their concentration times?

Mind Alive Inc. products teach us to relax and concentrate. We have many testimonials and studies done over the years that show the effectiveness of  audio visual entrainment for students. Dave should have another article completed soon about how students benefit from AVE use. In the meantime you can view the studies here.
 ~S



 
Infographic by Assisted Living Today – Assisted Living Facilities

Labels: attention, AVE, social media

Oh, the irony.....Can you believe that Mind Alive is on top of the top 2011 health stories?  

Who says you can't learn anything from teenagers?  Many teens are far smarter than myself when it comes to relaxation and stress relief.  They live active lifestyles with a myriad of sports activities to keep them physically balanced and healthy.  I was surprised to learn that they are even into Yoga.  Edmonton teens turn to yoga as stress-reliever  

Yoga is a great alternative for those of us whose bodies have aged and are feeling the aches and pains of daily living.  There is no high impact Jillian Michael's jumping up and down or Billy Blank's  kicking and punching - just nice and slow movements to gently stretch my under or over used muscles.  Unlike the many challenges of going to the gym,  I can do this at home on my carpet (no Bowflex required).  My massage therapist may even thank me for making her job easier. 

Let's face it, Yoga is probably the easiest way for us reluctant exercisers to relax and rejuvenate ourselves.  If you want even easier you should try the David Delight.  Wait...isn't taking the easy way out something a teenager would do?

 

I recently used a service called Fancy Hands. For $25/month I get 5 requests for them to do things like book appointments, generate a spreadsheet for lists found on the Internet, pick your players for your company hockey pool etc. For a little bit extra you can mail them a stack of business cards for them to generate a list of people you need to send Christmas cards to. They could also send the Christmas cards on your behalf for an extra charge. The turn around time is pretty good. Everything I asked for was done within a week (the same task I gave them took me an entire day), some within the same day. You can specify the details in the e-mail you send to them.

As a Mind Alive distributor you can use them to generate lists of potential clients especially if you sell business to business. For example, if you want the names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses and websites of all the chiropractors in your area you can send Fancy Hands a website such as http://www.chirodirectory.com/ and ask them to send you a spreadsheet with the following fields you're interested in, say name, mailing address and phone number for a specific city such as Sacramento, CA.

Once you have all that information at your finger tips you can do a number of things, such as ask Fancy Hands in a separate request to mail these chiropractors information about AVE and how it will benefit their practice. They have an extra charge for this service, but it saves you from having to do the work! Then if anyone replies to your advertising you can have Fancy Hands set up an appointment for you or make reservations for a business lunch.

I hope you found this helpful. I quite like the service and will continue to find uses for it :)

~ S

Labels: distributors, Fancy Hands, virtual assistants