Fate and freedom in developing neocortical circuits

The activity of neuronal circuits of the neocortex underlies our ability to perceive the world and interact with our environment. During development, these circuits emerge from dynamic interactions between cell-intrinsic, genetically determined programs and input/activity-dependent signals, which together shape these circuits into adulthood. Building on a large body of experimental work, several recent technological developments now allow us to interrogate these nature–nurture interactions with single gene/single input/single-cell resolution. Focusing on excitatory glutamatergic neurons, this review discusses the genetic and input-dependent mechanisms controlling how individual cortical neurons differentiate into specialized cells to assemble into stereotypical local circuits within global, large-scale networks. Proper functioning of the neocortex – the center of higher-order brain functions – depends on the correct assembly of neocortical neural circuits during development. Here the author discusses how cell-intrinsic developmental programs and activity-dependent signals together shape the formation of neocortical circuits.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  Nature Communications

• Publication date

  2017-07-03

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1038/ncomms16042PMID 28671189PMCID 5500875
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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