The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK.
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2022 Dec;23(12):725-743. doi: 10.1038/s41583-022-00644-y. Epub 2022 Oct 26.
The wide variety of animal behaviours that can be observed today arose through the evolution of their underlying neural circuits. Advances in understanding the mechanisms through which neural circuits change over evolutionary timescales have lagged behind our knowledge of circuit function and development. This is particularly true for central neural circuits, which are experimentally less accessible than peripheral circuit elements. However, recent technological developments - including cross-species genetic modifications, connectomics and transcriptomics - have facilitated comparative neuroscience studies with a mechanistic outlook. These advances enable knowledge from two classically separate disciplines - neuroscience and evolutionary biology - to merge, accelerating our understanding of the principles of neural circuit evolution. Here we synthesize progress on this topic, focusing on three aspects of neural circuits that change over evolutionary time: synaptic connectivity, neuromodulation and neurons. By drawing examples from a wide variety of animal phyla, we reveal emerging principles of neural circuit evolution.
今天可以观察到的各种各样的动物行为是通过其潜在的神经回路的进化而产生的。尽管我们对神经回路的功能和发育有了一定的了解，但在理解神经回路在进化时间尺度上发生变化的机制方面仍存在滞后。这对于中枢神经回路来说尤其如此，因为它们在实验上比外围回路元件更难接近。然而，最近的技术发展——包括跨物种的遗传修饰、连接组学和转录组学——促进了具有机制观点的比较神经科学研究。这些进展使来自两个传统上分离的学科——神经科学和进化生物学的知识得以融合，加速了我们对神经回路进化原则的理解。在这里，我们综合了这一主题的进展，重点关注在进化过程中发生变化的三个方面的神经回路：突触连接、神经调制和神经元。通过从广泛的动物门中举例，我们揭示了神经回路进化的新兴原则。
