Techniques and strategies to analyze neural progenitor cell migration

One of the most surprising aspects of neural development is that cells do not remain in their birthplace but actively migrate along a variety of routes to their final destinations. This review traces past, present, and future techniques used to analyze progenitor cell migration in the brain, and also discusses their relevant strengths and weaknesses. The large majority of information regarding cell migration is from studies where migratory cells have been labeled, but in which the actual movements are not observed, ie., from static experiments. More recently, dynamic imaging of cell migration in living slices and, even in vivo, has provided a glimpse of how complex these phenomena truly are. A variety of new techniques, such as 2-photon videomicroscopy, are emerging that will continue to add to our body of knowledge concerning the migration of cells in the central nervous system.