Table 1.

VEGF functions in the healthy, adult brain

Role	Constitutive/induced	Brain region	Remarks	References
Vascular
Matching MVD to perfusion demands	Physiological response	Throughout	Also neovascularization in response to vascular injury	[8]
Control of vessel permeability	Constitutive	Throughout		[83]
Maintaining endothelial fenestrations	Constitutive	CP	A role in BBB regulation	[7]
Controlling the vascular stem cell niche	Induced	DG		[5, 31]
Neurogenesis
Basal neurogenesis	Experimental induction	SVZ, DG	Unaffected by VEGF LOF	[4, 5, 31, 32]
Activity-induced neurogenesis	Enrichment, exercise	DG	Inhibited by VEGF LOF	[31, 37]
Neuroblast migration	Constitutive	RMS, Postnatal cerebellum	Not required for RMS migration	[27, 57]
Neuronal maturation		OB		[4, 50]
Synaptic plasticity
LTP	Constitutive and induced	DG	Induced LTP requires ongoing VEGF	[5, 26]
Learning and memory	Constitutive and induced		Reversible	[5, 31]