The adult mammalian brain exhibits a remarkable capacity of adaptation. The discovery that new neurons can be generated in the adult by neural stem cells (NSCs), residing in restricted micro-environments called niches, revolutionized our understanding of brain plasticity. In my lab, we hypothesize that the two main neurogenic regions of the adult brain (sub-ventricular zone and sub-granular zone) form a single plasticity-generator system, comprising multiple stem cell sub-populations, some of which may be inter-dependent. Such crosstalk of distinct stem cell pools holds an important functional significance under specific physiological conditions such as pregnancy and motherhood, or some pathological contexts. First, we investigate whether spatial NSC domains across both niches share unexpected molecular features and developmental trajectories, and test how their coordination can mediated by distant behaviorally-relevant neural circuits, outside the niches. Second, we are also interested in understading how newly-generated neurons can seamlessly integrate pre-existing circuitry and eventually disappear without disturbing the brain functional balance. To address this challenging question in the field, we use pregnancy and motherhood as neurogenesis-boosting paradigms. Finally, my lab aims at leveraging the power of cross-species comparisons to reveal how transient neurogenesis patterns may have emerged in mammalian vertebrates, allowing specific and temporally-controlled responses to upcoming physiological needs.