Mechanical injuries to the external regions of the brain including the cerebral cortex and other parts of the telencephalon are common yet relatively untreatable.1 The predicament in recovery from brain injury is that the adult central nervous system is generally thought to be incapable of replacing dead neurons. As the subventricular zone (SVZ) is now known to be neurogenic and is in close proximity to the cerebral cortex and other functionally important forebrain areas, the neurogeny of SVZ brings hope to the repair of brain injury.2,3 Because of the high frequency of injuries to the cerebral cortex and its functional importance in humans, many laboratories have studied the results of unilateral aspiration or percussion injury of the cerebral cortex.4-6 However,little is known about the response of endogenous neural stem/progenitor cells following loss of the cerebral cortex that commonly occurred in the neurosurgery. We have characterized the time course of the proliferation of neural stem/progenitor cells in the SVZ in brain to loss of cortical cells.