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Updated: May 1, 2026

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells
Published on: July 24, 2014
Spontaneous cephalic oscillations in vertebrate embryos support the Inside Story scenario of human development and
1Laboratoire Nanomédecine, Biologie Extracellulaire, Intégratome et Innovations en Santé, Université Paris Cité, CNRS UMR8175, INSERM U1334, 45 Rue des Saints-Pères, Paris, 75006, France. vincent.fleury@u-paris.fr.
Abstract:
It has been suggested for long that physical laws might constrain vertebrate development. Specifically, in hominins, it is observed that the head flexes forward as it dilates, as if there existed an internal correlation between head flexure and brain size. Such an internal correlation would contribute to explain why the face becomes less prognathous as the brain expands. I report here the discovery of spontaneous oscillations in the vertebrate embryo head, which show an intrinsic positive dynamic correlation between head flexure and brain dilation. This spontaneous oscillatory behavior demonstrates the existence of a robust biomechanical hinge inside the embryonic head, of textural origin, contributing to the tendency observed in hominins.
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