Purposeful patterns of spontaneous calcium transients in embryonic spinal neurons

Embryonic cultured Xenopus spinal neurons generate two types of spontaneous elevation of intracellular calcium that encode developmental information in the frequency with which they are produced. Calcium spikes regulate the appearance of GABA and maturation of potassium current. Calcium waves in growth cones regulate neurite extension. Spikes and waves are also observed in neurons differentiating in situ. Because differentiation is dependent on the frequency of calcium transients, neurons that are coactive and fire spikes in concert would be expected to differentiate together. Consistent with this prediction, segmentally arrayed clusters of putative motoneurons on the ventral aspect of the neural tube fire together during development.