The brain is a needy organ. It needs a constant flow of fresh, oxygenated blood. Remarkably, the brain establishes an intricate microvascular network to fulfill this immense task. While we have focused on revealing how this vascular system works in adulthood, and how it fails in brain aging, there is also limited knowledge on how it emerges during development.
Dr. Vanessa Coelho-Santos has completed a new review in WIRES Developmental Biology (download here) to piece together some of this knowledge. Data from numerous papers were compiled to paint the landscape of how the cerebrovasculature develops in structure and function during critical postnatal periods. Complete with beautiful graphic art from Tiago Figueiredo (www.behance.net/TiagoFigueiredoGD).