Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on May 8, 2009
Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(9):1953-1956; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp088
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The Origins of Cortical Interneurons: Mouse versus Monkey and Human
Center for Neuroscience, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95618, USA
Address correspondence to Dr Edward G. Jones, Center for Neuroscience, University of California Davis, 1544 Newton Court, Davis CA 95618, USA. Email: ejones{at}ucdavis.edu.
The neocortex of primates, including humans, is thought to contain significantly higher numbers and more diverse forms of 
-aminobutyric acidergic (GABAergic) interneurons than that of rodents. The mouse cortex displays a number of other features that distinguish it from the cortex of primates and suggest a somewhat less complex pattern of organization. Nevertheless, dramatic findings on the origins and migratory patterns of newly specified GABAergic cortical interneurons in the embryonic mouse have led to a prevailing view that GABAergic cortical interneurons of all species are born in the ganglionic eminence and undergo the same long tangential migration toward the cortex that is seen in the mouse. Recent observations in fetal human and monkey brains, although clearly identifying GABAergic neurons that reach the neocortex via the tangential route, also demonstrate that substantial numbers of GABA neurons are generated in the lateral ventricular neuroepithelium and migrate into the cortex via the same radial route followed by glutamatergic neurons. In the course of evolution of the higher primate cortex, it is likely that new forms of cortical interneuron with origins in the ventricular neuroepithelium have been added to an older population derived from the ganglionic eminence.
Key Words: cerebral cortex • development • human • monkey • neuronal migration • radial route • tangential route