To foster collaboration and scientific discussion, the Research Division of “Cellular and Developmental Neurobiology”at the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is holding a seminar series, where researchers present results from ongoing projects. On Nov. 10th, the third seminar of this seminar series was successfully held in conference room A405. Dr. DU Jiulin, the Deputy Director of CEBSIT, and more than 50 researchers participated in this seminar. 

　　Dr. LI Jia gave a talk entitled “Roles of Pericytes in Brain Vasculature Development”. In the talk, Jia made use of zebrafish as a model animal and established pericyte-lost line and found that pericyte loss leads to decreased capillary density and BBB leakage during development. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in pericyte-deficient brain suggests that although the overall BBB markers were normally expressed, ECs without pericyte contact gain artery-shifted molecular patterns and causes the imbalance of Notch and Vegf signaling in capillary ECs, resulting in the transforming of capillary EC program to artery related gene expression.  

　　This seminar has attracted active participation and lively discussions from young researchers and deepened the mutual understandings of various laboratories in the field.