Credit: Image: Courtesy of Dinorah Friedmann-Morvinski
The blue, green, red and yellow in this image indicate that these neurons are producing proteins typical of immature nerve cells, evidence that they have reverted to a stem cell-like state. Salk scientists found that mature cortical neurons are capable of reverting to this immature state and developing into an aggressive type of brain tumor that was previously thought to only develop from neural stem cells or glia, another type of cell in the brain.