In what I gather is a news release from MIT,
reports
A tiny molecule is key to determining the size and shape of the developing brain, researchers from the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT reported in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience. This molecule may one day enable scientists to manipulate stem cells in the adult brain.
A candidate plasticity gene and its growth-promoting protein, CPG15, could potentially be used to develop therapies for renewing damaged or diseased tissue. While stem cells regenerate neurons in only a few regions of the adult brain, researchers have speculated that a lack of adult stem cells may cause memory deficits and other disorders. …
Over-expressing CPG15 in rats gives them bigger brains. In addition, their enlarged brains have grooves and furrows like evolved mammalian brains with larger surface areas. [The article didn't say whether these rats were actually smarter than other rats.]
"We propose that by countering early apoptosis in specific progenitor populations, CPG15 has a role in regulating size and shape of the mammalian forebrain," the authors wrote.
This knowledge may one day be used to enhance survival of normally occurring stem cells in the human brain, or to grow neurons outside the body and then deposit them where needed to replace damaged or diseased tissue.
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