BioMed Central Blog

Viewpoints: contrasting opinions in Neural Development

Neural Development has published the first articles of a new review series, in which leading researchers present apparently conflicting interpretations in parallel.

The series will focus on the mechanisms of neural development for which large data sets are available, but no consensus interpretation has emerged.  By inviting the leading proponents of distinct viewpoints to present their hypotheses side-by-side, Neural Development hopes to focus and stimulate debate on the central issues involved.

The series begins with a pair of articles by Marla Feller and Leo Chalupa. They examine the idea that patterns of spontaneous electrical activity in retinal cells provide instructions required for specific connectivity of retinal axons with their targets in the lateral geniculate nucleus. The topic is an important one because this system has been an influential model for analysis of activity-dependent refinement of connectivity, a phenomenon that appears to be widespread in the developing brain.

Readers of Neural Development are invited to add to the debate by using the ‘post a comment’ feature available on the full text version of each article.

For more information please read the Editorial introducing the series. Suggestions of further topics to cover are welcome ­- please send suggestions to editorial@neuraldevelopment.com.

Posted by Ciaran O'Neill at 18:20    Comments (0)