Emergence of Functional Heart-Brain Circuits in a Vertebrate.

ABSTRACT: The early formation of sensorimotor circuits is essential for survival. While the development and function of exteroceptive circuits and their associated motor pathways are well characterized, far less is known about the circuits that convey viscerosensory inputs to the brain and transmit visceromotor commands from the central nervous system to internal organs. Technical limitations, such as the in utero development of viscerosensory and visceromotor circuits and the invasiveness of procedures required to access them, have hindered studies of their functional development in mammals. Using larval zebrafish-which are genetically accessible and optically transparent-we tracked, in vivo, how cardiosensory and cardiomotor neural circuits assemble and begin to function. We uncovere

SUBMITTER: Hernandez-Nunez L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12485852 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature