Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 27, 2026

A Pipeline using Bilateral In Utero Electroporation to Interrogate Genetic Influences on Rodent Behavior
Published on: May 21, 2020
Developmental and genetic mechanisms of neural circuit evolution
1Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Max-von-Laue Strasse 4, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Abstract:
Regardless of how a nervous system is genetically built, natural selection is acting on the functional outcome of its activity. To understand how nervous systems evolve, it is essential to analyze how their functional units - the neural circuits - change and adapt over time. A neural circuit can evolve in many different ways, and the underlying developmental and genetic mechanisms involve different sets of genes. Therefore, the comparison of gene expression can help reconstructing circuit evolution, as demonstrated by several examples in sensory systems. Functional constraints on neural circuit evolution suggest that in nervous systems developmental and genetic variants do not appear randomly, and that the evolution of neuroanatomy might be biased. Sensory systems, in particular, seem to evolve along trajectories that enhance their evolvability, ensuring adaptation to different environments.
Related Concept Videos
Neural Circuits
Neuronal pools are collections of nerve cells with similar functions and interact through chemical and electrical signals. These pools include both interneurons (the central neural circuit nodes that...
Neuroplasticity
Neurulation
Neurogenesis and Regeneration of Nervous Tissue
The Role of Ion Channels in Neuronal Computation
Sometimes a single EPSP is strong enough to induce an action potential in the postsynaptic neuron. However, multiple presynaptic inputs must often create EPSPs around the same time for the postsynaptic neuron to be sufficiently depolarized to fire an action potential....

