Wreden Chris C, Heckscher Ellie S
Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2024 Sep 16. doi: 10.1101/pdb.top108395.
In animals, movement is generated by the activity of motor circuits housed in the vertebrate spinal cord or the arthropod nerve cord. How motor circuits form is a fundamental question, with wide-ranging impacts on the fields of development, neurobiology, medicine, evolution, and beyond. Until recently, studying circuit assembly had been experimentally difficult, with a paucity of suitable models. Due to the introduction of novel neuroscience tools (calcium imaging, optogenetics, connectomics), embryos and larvae can be used as models to study motor circuit assembly. Here, we briefly review the knowledge relevant to motor circuit assembly in larvae. We discuss the larval body and its movements, larval neurons and circuits in the motor system, and how the generation of neural diversity starting from stem cells relates to circuit formation. The long-term goal of research in this field is to identify developmental rules, determine when the rules apply, generate an integrated understanding of motor circuit development, and uncover molecular mechanisms driving the assembly process. Motor circuits are an ancient part of the nervous system, and so far, the developmental programs guiding motor circuit assembly appear to be largely conserved across phyla. Thus, as methods improve in other systems, findings in will provide foundational concepts that will inspire hypotheses in those systems.
在动物中，运动由脊椎动物脊髓或节肢动物神经索中的运动回路活动产生。运动回路如何形成是一个基本问题，对发育、神经生物学、医学、进化等领域有着广泛影响。直到最近，由于缺乏合适的模型，研究回路组装在实验上一直很困难。由于新型神经科学工具（钙成像、光遗传学、连接组学）的引入，胚胎和幼虫可被用作研究运动回路组装的模型。在此，我们简要回顾与幼虫运动回路组装相关的知识。我们讨论幼虫的身体及其运动、运动系统中的幼虫神经元和回路，以及从干细胞开始的神经多样性产生如何与回路形成相关。该领域研究的长期目标是确定发育规则，确定规则适用的时间，形成对运动回路发育的综合理解，并揭示驱动组装过程的分子机制。运动回路是神经系统的一个古老部分，到目前为止，指导运动回路组装的发育程序在各门类中似乎基本保守。因此，随着其他系统中方法的改进，这里的发现将提供基础概念，激发那些系统中的假设。
