Should I stay or should I go? How adult brain stem cells leave quiescence.

Most adult stem cells in our brains are sleeping (quiescent). Quiescence helps ensure animals have a lifelong population of brain stem cells, which is crucial for the maintenance of brain circuitry. This project aims to investigate how this process is regulated at a molecular level. Ultimately, we will define the molecular playbook controlling quiescence and explain why brain stem cells progress into deeper states of quiescence during aging. Understanding how neural stem cell quiescence is regulated will serve as the foundation for a range of novel applications (out of scope of this proposal), including bioengineering neural tissue and approaches designed to counteract the time-dependent increase in quiescence that occurs during aging.