Building a circuit through correlated spontaneous neuronal activity in the developing vertebrate and invertebrate visual systems
- Corresponding author: cd38{at}nyu.edu
Abstract
During the development of the vertebrate nervous systems, genetic programs assemble an immature circuit that is subsequently refined by neuronal activity evoked by external stimuli. However, prior to sensory experience, the intrinsic property of the developing nervous system also triggers correlated network-level neuronal activity, with retinal waves in the developing vertebrate retina being the best documented example. Spontaneous activity has also been found in the visual system of Drosophila. Here, we compare the spontaneous activity of the developing visual system between mammalian and Drosophila and suggest that Drosophila is an emerging model for mechanistic and functional studies of correlated spontaneous activity.
Keywords
- Drosophila
- gap junctions
- neural development
- spontaneous activity
- vertebrates versus invertebrates
- visual system
- wave of neural activity
Footnotes
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Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.348241.121.
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