What is it about?
This work showed that embryo brains can function in a waking-like manner earlier than previously thought -- well before birth. Like adult brains, embryo brains also have neural circuitry that monitors the environment to selectively wake the brain up during important events.report the activity in chicken embryo brains is inversely related to behavioral activity, with different sleep-like states emerging for the first time. Playing meaningful sounds selectively induced patterns of embryonic brain activity similar to awake, post-hatching animals.
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Why is it important?
The findings reported in the paper may have implications not only for animal models, but also for prematurely born infants. For example, pediatricians worry about the effects of stimulating brains that are still developingn, especially as modern medicine continues to push back the gestational age at which preemies can reliably survive.
Perspectives
This work was made possible by a new generation of molecular brain imagers that we have developed in our laboratories. Our technology pushed the state-of-the art by detecting very small amounts of tracer at a very big spatial resolution. We were surprised by the amount of details that can be registered with this system and the opportunities that can offer us in the study of the embryo neurodevelopment.
Professor Juan Jose Vaquero
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Waking-like Brain Function in Embryos, Current Biology, May 2012, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.030.
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