High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Neural stem cells (NSCs) are the self-renewing, multipotent cells that generate the main phenotypes of the nervous system. In 1989, Sally Temple described multipotent, self-renewing progenitor and stem cells in the subventricular zone of the mouse brain (Temple, S, Nature, 1989). In 1992, Brent A. Reynolds and Samuel Weiss were the first to isolate neural progenitor and stem cells from the adult striatal tissue, including the subventricular zone — one of the neurogenic areas — of adult mice brain tissue. In the same year the team of Constance Cepko and Evan Y. Snyder were the first to isolate multipotent cells from the mouse cerebellum and stable transfected them with the oncogene v-myc. Interestingly this molecule is one of the genes widely used now to reprogrammed adult non-stem cells into pluripotent stem cells. Since then, neural progenitor and stem cells have been isolated from various areas of the adult brain, including non-neurogenic areas, such as the spinal cord, and from various species including human.