TAKEPLACE: COLLABORATING GENES

Sunday, February 13, 2011

COLLABORATING GENES

ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2011) — The human brain consists of approximately one hundred billion nerve cells. Each of these cells needs to connect to specific other cells during the brain's development in order to form a fully functional organism. Yet how does a nerve cell know where it should grow and which cells to contact? Scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have now shown that growing nerve cells realise when they've reached their target area in the fly brain thanks to the interaction of two genes. SCIENCEDAILY

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