The paper discussed in the article appears to be http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.30..., and the radiation treatment used is http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1667/RR2214.1. Assuming the dosing was the same as in the original paper, this means that the radiation beam was 10 Gy of X-Rays over a 9mm^2 area, which is somewhat interesting because according to Wikipedia "A whole-body exposure to 5 or more gray of high-energy radiation at one time usually leads to death within 14 days". So I'm surprised the beam merely "deactivates" neuron production, it seems more like something that should be expected to kill the targeted cells entirely.
If your stomach lining cells stop dividing for a few weeks, you digest yourself and bleed out through an ulcer. If your bone marrow cells stop dividing for a few weeks, you bleed to death or die of infections. Location matters.
