Segmentation moves to the fore

Abstract

The complexity of the vertebrate nervous system has driven many to search for simplifying or organizing principles. For more than a century, studies of the developing neural tube have hinted that serial subdivision might be an important underlying mechanism through which regional specializations and patterns emerge [1]. For example, in the region of the future hindbrain, or rhombencephalon, the otherwise smooth neural tube is interrupted by a series of flexures separating small domains that extend rostro-caudally over a few tens of cells. These 'neuromeres', termed rhombomeres, were proposed to be the basic building blocks of the hindbrain. However, conflicting findings and a paucity of solid data on the precise nature of neurogenesis in the rhombencephalon (or other regions of the neuraxis) relegated these concepts to the subject of arguments and prevented them from serving as catalysts for experimental insights. As a result, research on brain patterning proceeded largely separately from the neuromere concept.

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