Beyond electroporation, we take advantage of the properties of different viral particles to label the lineage of specific populations of neural stem cells. Retroviral transfections stain the full lineage of infected progenitors. On the other hand, adenoviral transfections only label time-specific populations. These approaches are very useful to research how the lineage of progenitors evolved on amniotes, what is the contribution of each neural sector to the formation of the adult brain.