Visual experience-driven switch in endothelial metabolic transporters is essential for cerebrovascular maturation
How to prepare an accurate paper press kit? Illustrated guide
N. Kim, E.-Y. Choi, S. Chae, J.-Y. Jeong, H. K. Kim, W.-J. Oh · DOI: 10.64898/2026.10.26.762059 · Summary page
Why cover this story this week?
Seeing helps blood vessels mature
Sensory experience does more than shape neural connections. A developmental preprint reports that visual experience helps brain blood-vessel cells switch metabolic transporters, reducing the lactate transporter MCT1 while increasing the glucose transporter GLUT1. Keeping endothelial MCT1 expression elevated disrupted vascular development and blood–brain barrier maturation, producing leakage.
The proposed link runs through interactions among neurons, astrocytes and endothelial cells. Declining TGF-beta signaling drives the transporter transition, while endothelial TGF-beta1 helps sustain an immature, vessel-growing state through a lactate-dependent feedback loop. Sensory experience promotes astrocyte maturation, which dampens endothelial TGF-beta signaling, although precisely how astrocytes accomplish this remains less settled. The broader implication is that experience helps coordinate the brain’s supporting infrastructure, not just its information-processing circuits.
Editorial context written by AI from abstracts, not independent scientific validation. The kit and its verified quotes rely on the source paper, not on this letter.
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