CORTICAL DEVELOPMENT
May
5th issue of Neuron (Vol. 46,
Issue 3, May 2005) has devoted to Cortical Development a
series of mini-reviews describing recent progress in our understanding of the
mechanisms underlying the development of the cerebral cortex.
In recent years, there has been an
explosion of research on this topic, and these reviews -including neurogenesis, fate determination,
migration and differentiation, and wiring- are intended to provide an overview of
this rapidly developing field.
BM&L’s members have just discussed two
of the newer techniques: enhancer trapping and retrovirus tagging.
Particularly, retrovirus tagging gave us an important confirmation: neural
cells which originate together in the proliferative zone tend to stick together
throughout life. It is interesting that in the retina it can be shown that
clones deriving from a single marked cell differentiate into both rod and
bipolar cells.
BM&L has studied how cortical interneurons find their position. Two years ago, reviewing four important researches in the field, Linda Faye Lehman and Giuseppe Perrella concluded that the fate of cortical interneurons is partially specified before they reach the cortex, although a subset of cells might also pick up environmental information within the cortical layers (Linda Faye Lehman & Giuseppe Perrella, How cortical interneurons find their address. BM&L-INTERNATIONAL, Views and News, 09/11, 2003).