Radial glial cell the onset of gliogenesis, it is unclear whether they are involved in spinal cord neurogenesis or migration. Radial glia have also been implicated in forming boundaries between different axonal tracts and white matter areas of the brain. As radial glia serve as the primary neural and glial progenitors in the brain, as well as being crucial for proper neuronal migration, defects in radial glial function can have profound effects in the development of the nervous system. Mutations in either Lis1 or Nde1, essential proteins for radial glial differentiation and stabilization, cause the associated neurodevelopmental diseases Lissencephaly and micro-lissencephaly (which literally
Radial glial cell visualized using the electron microscope or high-resolution time-lapse microscopy, through which neurons can be seen tightly wrapped around radial glia as they travel upwards through the cortex. Additional evidence suggests that many neurons may move between neighboring radial glial fibers during migration. While excitatory neuronal migration is largely radial, inhibitory, GABAergic neurons have been shown to undergo tangential migration. Tangentially migrating neurons also appear to initiate contact with radial glial fibers in the developing cortex of ferrets, implicating radial glial cells in both of these forms of migration. As radial glia seem to differentiate late in spinal cord development, near