During animal development, cells become progressively more restricted in th
e cell types to which they can give rise. In the central nervous system (CN
S), for example, multipotential stem cells produce various kinds of specifi
ed precursors that divide a limited number of times before they terminally
differentiate into either neurons OF glial cells. We show here that certain
extracellular signals can induce oligodendrocyte precursor cells to revert
to multipotential neural stem cells, which can self-renew and give rise to
neurons and astrocytes, as well as to oligodendrocytes, Thus, these precur
sor cells have greater developmental potential than previously thought.