ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2009
Uniquely hominid features of adult human astrocytes.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 800 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
800 citing papers in PubMed, 1,477 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Written in the Stars: Astrocyte Biology From Evolution to Disease.Acta physiologica (Oxford, England) · 2026Review
- A reproducible three-dimensional model of human brain tissue to investigate physiological and disease-associated microglia phenotypes.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- APOE3 and APOE4 human astrocytes differentially modulate Alzheimer's disease pathology and microglial responses in chimeric mice.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Varicose Projection Astrocytes: Not a Cell Type, but a Cell State.Journal of neurochemistry · 2026Article
- Perisynaptic Astrocytic Processes as Communication Hubs and Early Sites of Dysfunction.The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry · 2026Review
- Regional astrocyte dysregulation and altered glymphatic-related markers in Alzheimer's disease frontal cortex.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Varicose projection astrocytes: Conserved reactive cells in brain pathology.Science advances · 2026Article
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- The roles of microglia and astrocytes in inflammasomes and neurological disorders.Neural regeneration research · 2026Article
- Clinical-Grade Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Neural Precursor Cells Restore Motor Function and Preserve Striatal Integrity in a Quinolinic Acid-Lesioned Rat Model of Huntington's Disease.Cell proliferation · 2026Article
- Functional Expression of Nicotinic Receptors on iPSC-Derived Astrocytes and Signalling Disturbances by a Panel of Neonicotinoid Pesticides and Their Metabolites.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- The multiple scales of astrocytic functional units.Nature neuroscience · 2026Review
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- Human neural organoid modeling of diffuse midline glioma captures the complexity of patient tumors.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2026Article
- Metabolism Controls the Timing of Human Brain Development and Maturation.Journal of inherited metabolic disease · 2026Review
- In Vivo Massively Parallel Reporter Assay Reveals Sequence Determinants of mRNA Localization in Astrocytes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
740 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Defining the microanatomic differences between the human brain and that of other mammals is key to understanding its unique computational power. Although much effort has been devoted to comparative studies of neurons, astrocytes have received far less attention. We report here that protoplasmic astrocytes in human neocortex are 2.6-fold larger in diameter and extend 10-fold more GFAP (glial fibrillary acidic protein)-positive primary processes than their rodent counterparts. In cortical slices prepared from acutely resected surgical tissue, protoplasmic astrocytes propagate Ca(2+) waves with a speed of 36 microm/s, approximately fourfold faster than rodent. Human astrocytes also transiently increase cystosolic Ca(2+) in response to glutamatergic and purinergic receptor agonists. The human neocortex also harbors several anatomically defined subclasses of astrocytes not represented in rodents. These include a population of astrocytes that reside in layers 5-6 and extend long fibers characterized by regularly spaced varicosities. Another specialized type of astrocyte, the interlaminar astrocyte, abundantly populates the superficial cortical layers and extends long processes without varicosities to cortical layers 3 and 4. Human fibrous astrocytes resemble their rodent counterpart but are larger in diameter. Thus, human cortical astrocytes are both larger, and structurally both more complex and more diverse, than those of rodents. On this basis, we posit that this astrocytic complexity has permitted the increased functional competence of the adult human brain.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.