Making Up Minds

A brief conversation is enough to show that the brains of a toddler, teenager, and adult work very differently. But their biological structure is similar, and researchers are interested in understanding the subtle changes that happen as we develop, to reveal strategies for setting development back on track when things go awry. A new study has intricately mapped the structure of a developing worm brain at eight points during development (pictured, components of the adult structure being visualised from many sliced sections), to reveal how individual connections between brain cells evolve as the animal grows. In this simple model, some areas of the brain remain stable while others such as those governing sensory and motor functions make new connections and reform, ultimately boosting information processing. Identifying more flexible regions of development may point to new strategies for overcoming genetic developmental vulnerabilities, and ultimately make sense of our own minds.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

Website

• Video from work by Daniel Witvliet and colleagues
• Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada
• Video originally published on BioRXiv preprint server with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Now published in Nature, August 2021