Nature Communications (Feb 2017)

Prenatal thalamic waves regulate cortical area size prior to sensory processing

  • Verónica Moreno-Juan,
  • Anton Filipchuk,
  • Noelia Antón-Bolaños,
  • Cecilia Mezzera,
  • Henrik Gezelius,
  • Belen Andrés,
  • Luis Rodríguez-Malmierca,
  • Rafael Susín,
  • Olivier Schaad,
  • Takuji Iwasato,
  • Roland Schüle,
  • Michael Rutlin,
  • Sacha Nelson,
  • Sebastien Ducret,
  • Miguel Valdeolmillos,
  • Filippo M. Rijli,
  • Guillermina López-Bendito

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14172
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

Read online

How sensory maps are formed in the brain is only partially understood. Here the authors describe spontaneous calcium waves that propagate across different sensory nuclei in the embryonic thalamus; disrupting the wave pattern triggers thalamic gene expression changes and eventually alters the size of cortical areas.