Objective To study the effects of taurine on the survival and differentiation of neuroepithelial cells treated with hyperthermia. Methods Neuroepithelial cells were dissociated from embryonic neural tube of E12.5d mice. They were divided into the control group, the hyperthermia group and the taurine groupⅠ,Ⅱ. The morphological changes were observed under the light microscope. MTT was used to examine the proliferative activitiy of various groups. Apopotosis percentage was determined by DAPI staining. The immunofluorescence staining was used to identify the expression of the Caspase-3, MAP-2 and GFAP in cultured cells. The immunostaining positive cells were counted at high fields in different groups. Results In the hyperthermia group, compared to the control group,the proliferative activitiy of neuroepithelial cells decreased significantly, the apoptosis percentage and the immunostaining positive cells of Caspase-3 increased, the immunostaining positive cells of MAP-2 decreased. However, these changes were significantly reversed by the taurine preconditioning. Conclusion Taurine may protect neuroepithelial cells from hyperthermia, and may promote these cells to differentiate i