UNC Neuroscience Center, The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill 27599, USA.
Radial glial proliferation is a critical step in the construction of cerebral cortex. In this issue of Neuron, Weissman and colleagues use time-lapse calcium imaging techniques to demonstrate that spontaneous calcium waves sweeping through cohorts of radial glia in the ventricular zone can modulate their proliferation during cerebral cortical development.