Activation of β 2 adrenergic receptors promotes adult hippocampal neurogenesis.

The subgranular zone (SGZ) of the hippocampal dentate gyrus is one of the few central nervous system regions where genera-tion of adult born neurons occurs physiologically. This process, referred to as adult hippocampal neurogenesis (ahN), relies on the presence of neural progenitor cells (NPC) in the SGZ neu-rogenic niche. NPC, in response to appropriate cues and sig-nals, give rise to neuroblasts migrating to the granular cell layer (GCL) where they mature into neurons functionally integrated into the hippocampal circuit (Toda et al., 2019). Although the functional role of adult born hippocampal neurons is not fully understood, a vast array of experimental evidence suggest that these cells are involved in crucial hippocampal-dependent func-tions like specific types of learning and memory and emotional responses (Toda et al., 2019). Intriguingly, deregulated ahN has been associated with several neurodegenerative and neuropsy-chiatric diseases. Major depression, in particular, is one of the disorders where dysregulated ahN has been more extensively studied (Boldrini et al., 2012; Bortolotto et al., 2014).