Ben A. Barres

Neurotoxic reactive astrocytes are induced by activated microglia

An RNA-Sequencing Transcriptome and Splicing Database of Glia, Neurons, and Vascular Cells of the Cerebral Cortex

The major cell classes of the brain differ in their developmental processes, metabolism, signaling, and function. To better understand the functions and interactions of the cell...

Genomic Analysis of Reactive Astrogliosis

Reactive astrogliosis is characterized by a profound change in astrocyte phenotype in response to all CNS injuries and diseases. To better understand the reactive astrocyte stat...

Purification and Characterization of Progenitor and Mature Human Astrocytes Reveals Transcriptional and Functional Differences with Mouse

Developmental Heterogeneity of Microglia and Brain Myeloid Cells Revealed by Deep Single-Cell RNA Sequencing

A Transcriptome Database for Astrocytes, Neurons, and Oligodendrocytes: A New Resource for Understanding Brain Development and Function

Understanding the cell–cell interactions that control CNS development and function has long been limited by the lack of methods to cleanly separate neural cell types. Here we de...

New tools for studying microglia in the mouse and human CNS

Significance Microglia are the tissue resident macrophages of the brain and spinal cord, implicated in important developmental, homeostatic, and disease processes, although our ...

Thrombospondins Are Astrocyte-Secreted Proteins that Promote CNS Synaptogenesis

Astrocytes mediate synapse elimination through MEGF10 and MERTK pathways

Emerging roles of astrocytes in neural circuit development

Astrocyte glypicans 4 and 6 promote formation of excitatory synapses via GluA1 AMPA receptors

Control of excitatory CNS synaptogenesis by astrocyte-secreted proteins Hevin and SPARC

Astrocytes regulate synaptic connectivity in the CNS through secreted signals. Here we identified two astrocyte-secreted proteins, hevin and SPARC, as regulators of excitatory s...

Development of a Method for the Purification and Culture of Rodent Astrocytes

SnapShot: Astrocytes in Health and Disease

Normal aging induces A1-like astrocyte reactivity

The decline of cognitive function occurs with aging, but the mechanisms responsible are unknown. Astrocytes instruct the formation, maturation, and elimination of synapses, and ...

A single-cell transcriptomic atlas characterizes ageing tissues in the mouse

Block of A1 astrocyte conversion by microglia is neuroprotective in models of Parkinson’s disease

A survey of human brain transcriptome diversity at the single cell level

Significance The brain comprises an immense number of cells and cellular connections. We describe the first, to our knowledge, single cell whole transcriptome analysis of human ...