Synopses & Reviews
Comprehensive, up-to-date and authoritative, this volume covers all the recent advances in understanding the early events of neural development at the molecular and cellular levels. The authors detail the applications of molecular genetic methods to the study of neural induction, neuronal phenotypes and processes, and the formation of specific patterns of connections. They analyze the new information generated through modern techniques for identifying, cloning, deleting and introducing specific genes, for labeling neuronal or glial precursors, and for imaging individual neurons or parts of neurons.
Other chapters focus on the increasing use of a variety of model organisms: fruit flies, nematode worms, zebra fish, xenopus frogs, chicks, and mice. The improved conservation of DNA and protein sequences, and the availability of gene and protein databases have made it possible to rapidly identify gene homologues in organisms sometimes separated by hundreds of millions of years of evolution. This volume features several chapters co-authored by investigators one of whom works on vertebrates and the other on invertebrates. They demonstrate clearly that although the nervous systems of a fruit fly and a mouse, for example, are quite different in appearance and organization, many of the same molecular players and cellular processes are involved in their assembly. Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development will be of great practical interest to researchers, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in developmental, cell and molecular biology, genetics, and neuroscience.
About the Author
W. Maxwell Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., is Vice-President and Chief Scientific Officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Thomas M. Jessell, Ph.D., is a Howard Hughes Investigator and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University, New York.
S. Lawrence Zipursky, Ph.D., is a Howard Hughes Investigator and Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
1. Neural Induction in Xenopus,
R.M. Harland2. The Determination of Neuronal Phenotype, D.J. Anderson and Y.N. Jan
3. Neuron-Glial Interactions, B.A. Barres
4. Molecular Mechanisms of Axon Guidance and Target Recognition, C.S. Goodman and M.Tessier-Lavigne
5. Synapse Formation: A Molecular Perspective, J.R. Sanes and R.H. Scheller
6. Neurotrophic Factors and Their Receptors: Roles in Neuronal Development and Function, L.F. Reichardt and I. Farinas
7. Neuronal Cell Death, J. Agapite and H. Steller
8. Inductive Signals and Assignment of Cell Fate in the Spinal Cord and Hindbrain: An Axial Coordinate System for Neural Patterning, T.M. Jessell and A. Lumsden
9. The Role of Hox Genes in Hindbrain Development, M.R. Capecchi
10. Regulation of Patterning and Differentiation in the Embryonic Vertebrate Forebrain
11. Lineage Analysis in the Vertebrate Central Nervous System, C.L. Cepko, J.A. Golden, et al.
12. Development of the Cerebral Cortex: Mechanism Controlling Cell Fate, Laminar and Areal Patterning, and Axonal Connectivity, A. Chenn, J.E. Braisted, et al.
13. The Development of the Drosophila Visual System, T. Wolff, K.A. Martin, et al.
14. Neurotrophins and Visual System Plasticity, C.J. Shatz
15. Linking Layers and Connecting Columns: The Development of Local Circuits in the Visual Cortex, L.C. Katz