Nuclear migration in mammalian brain development

During development of the mammalian brain, neural stem cells divide and give rise to adult stem cells, glia and neurons, which migrate to their final locations. Nuclear migration is an important feature of neural stem cell (radial glia progenitor) proliferation and subsequent postmitotic neuronal migration. Defects in nuclear migration contribute to severe neurodevelopmental disorders such as microcephaly and lissencephaly. In this review, we address the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for nuclear migration during the radial glia cell cycle and postmitotic neuronal migration, with a particular focus on the role of molecular motors and cytoskeleton dynamics in regulating nuclear behavior.The authors thank Dr. Tiago Dantas and Dr. Aditi Falnikar for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by grants R01 HD40182 to R.V., and the FCT MDPhD Scholarship PD/BD/113766/2015 to J.C.G