Neural stem cell research is a dynamic field in modern neurosciences and regenerative medicine. It is inspiring to see how neural stem cell assays are applied to basic and translational research spanning topics from the development of the central nervous system, neurobiology of diseases, and regenerative biology to drug discovery and clinical research. The initial discovery 30 years ago of the existence of neural stem cells in the adult and developing central nervous system, established approaches for clonogenic isolation and perpetuation of neural stem cells to establish the multipotency and self-renewal ability of neural stem cells. Since then there has been tremendous progress in identifying various sources of neural stem cells based and in the development of novel experimental approaches to isolate, expand and differentiate neural stem cells into specific neural lineages. The rapid progress in single-cell technologies has enabled the molecular characterization of neural stem cells and their progeny further defining the various neural cell types in the culture.

The goal of the present collection of methods is to share different experimental approaches to isolate, grow, differentiate, characterize and manipulate neural stem cells. Each approach impacts the final cellular composition of the neural stem cell cultures. We hope sharing techniques, data and knowledge will benefit the scientific community, facilitate learning, collaborations, and progress in this exciting field of neuroscience.