Dendritic growth gated by a steroid hormone receptor underlies increases in activity in the developing Drosophila locomotor system.

ABSTRACT: As animals grow, their nervous systems also increase in size. How growth in the central nervous system is regulated and its functional consequences are incompletely understood. We explored these questions, using the larval Drosophila locomotor system as a model. In the periphery, at neuromuscular junctions, motoneurons are known to enlarge their presynaptic axon terminals in size and strength, thereby compensating for reductions in muscle excitability that are associated with increases in muscle size. Here, we studied how motoneurons change in the central nervous system during periods of animal growth. We find that within the central nervous system motoneurons also enlarge their postsynaptic dendritic arbors, by the net addition of branches, and that these scale with overall animal size. T

SUBMITTER: Zwart MF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3791713 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature