1932

Abstract

▪ Abstract 

With little more than 330 cells, two thirds within the sensory vesicle, the CNS of the tadpole larva of the ascidian provides us with a chordate nervous system in miniature. Neurulation, neurogenesis and its genetic bases, as well as the gene expression territories of this tiny constituency of cells all follow a chordate plan, giving rise in some cases to frank structural homologies with the vertebrate brain. Recent advances are fueled by the release of the genome and EST expression databases and by the development of methods to transfect embryos by electroporation. Immediate prospects to test the function of neural genes are based on the isolation of mutants by classical genetics and insertional mutagenesis, as well as by the disruption of gene function by morpholino antisense oligo-nucleotides. Coupled with high-speed video analysis of larval swimming, optophysiological methods offer the prospect to analyze at single-cell level the function of a CNS built on a vertebrate plan.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144255
2004-07-21
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144255
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error