How does a neuronal process reach its destination?

Hiroyuki Kamiguchi and team members aim to elucidate the mechanism of how the neuronal processes find their way, and to develop techniques to regenerate neuronal networks that have been injured owing to brain or spinal cord damage.

How does a neuronal process reach its destination?
Hiroyuki Kamiguchi

Laboratory Head of Neuronal Growth Mechanisms
Neural Growth and Regeneration Research Group
RIKEN Brain Science Institute

We can see, hear, think, and move our arms and legs because a large number of nerve cells in the nervous system communicate with each other in a sophisticated way to form a neuronal network system. During the period of neuronal network formation, nerve cells gradually extend their neuronal processes, which on reaching their destinations exchange information. Hiroyuki Kamiguchi, Laboratory Head, and team members aim to elucidate the mechanism of how the neuronal processes find their way, and to develop techniques to regenerate neuronal networks that have been injured owing to brain or spinal cord damage.

Basic mechanism of growth cone advancement

A nerve cell has a long process called an axon that transmits messages to its destination, and short processes called dendrites that receive information. The longest axon in the body ranges from the toes to the neck, which measures more than one meter for the average adult. On the other hand, the cell body, which is the main body of a nerve cell, is only 0.01-0.02 mm in diameter. Thus, a nerve cell can extend an astonishingly long axon, several tens of thousands of times longer than the cell body, to its destination.

What mechanism makes this possible?

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About the researcher

Hiroyuki Kamiguchi was born in Saitama, Japan, in 1964. He graduated from the School of Medicine, Keio University, in 1989. He completed his medical training in neurosurgery at Keio University Hospital and became a board-certified neurosurgeon in 1995. After obtaining his PhD from Keio University in 1996, he spent three years in postdoctoral training at the Department of Neurosciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA. He returned to Japan as a Senior Scientist at RIKEN Brain Science Institute in 1999 and started his own research group. He was promoted to Head of the Laboratory for Neuronal Growth Mechanisms in 2003 and has been conducting basic and translational research that focuses on molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuronal circuit formation and repair.

Published: 12 Oct 2007

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Medicine