Assembly of a functional neuronal circuit in embryos of an ancestral metazoan is influenced by temperature and the microbiome.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how neural populations emerge to give rise to behavior is a major goal in neuroscience. Here, we explore the self-assembly of neural circuits in Hydra, an organism with a simple nervous system but no centralized information processing, to enhance the understanding of nervous system evolution. We define self-assembly as spontaneous organization of neurons into functional circuits without requiring a prespecified structural template. In this context, the N4 neuronal circuit, which we have previously found to be particularly important in the feeding of the animal, develops in embryos through activity-driven self-assembly, a process in which intrinsic calcium activity drives connectivity and synchronization among spatially distributed neurons over time. Gap junctions and v

SUBMITTER: Noack C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12168009 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature