< Back to previous page

Project

Transcriptional Mechanisms of Human-Specific Neuronal Differentiation and Specification

It is often considered that the most complicated structure generated by evolution is the human cerebral cortex, which is responsible for higher-order brain functions (Suzuki & Vanderhaeghen, 2015). At the phenotypic level, the most striking difference certainly resides in the differences in cognitive function between humans and other species. Cellular correlates of this distinction include features such as greater synaptic plasticity and connectivity in human cortical neurons, which are proposed to stem in part from a comparatively prolonged neuronal maturation, i.e. years instead of weeks in the mouse, leading to a so-called neuronal neoteny (Bufill et al., 2011). Interestingly human cortical neurons mature along a prolonged period, like in the human brain in vivo, even following xenotransplantation in the mouse brain, suggesting that this neoteny is an intrinsic property of the neurons (Espuny-Camacho et al., 2013). However, the transcriptional mechanisms that control this putative neurodevelopmental clock remain unknown. We aim to identify human-specific transcriptional programmes that underlie neuronal maturation using in vitro and xenotransplantation modes of human and non-human primate neuron development, in conjunction with single-cell RNA-seq analyses. We thus aim to uncover which regulatory networks underlie the human-specific neuronal neoteny and how these relate to brain development and evolution.

Date:2 Sep 2019 →  2 Sep 2023
Keywords:Single Cell Sequencing, Neoteny, Neurobiology, Developmental Biology, Corticogenesis
Disciplines:Developmental neuroscience, Bio-informatics
Project type:PhD project