Topic: growth cone

During brain development, billions of axons navigate over multiple spatial scales to reach specific targets, and so form functional circuits. However, the limited information capacity of the zygotic genome puts a strong constraint on how, and which, axonal routes can be encoded. We propose and validate a mechanism of development that can provide an efficient encoding of this global wiring task. The key principle is that successive mitoses of the neural stem cells induce a hierarchical organization of gene expression patterns in global high dimensional expression space. Provided that mitotic da

We previously reported that TRPV2 can be activated by mechanical stimulation which enhances axonal outgrowth in developing neurons (Shibasaki et al., J. Neurosci. 2010). However, the molecular mechanisms governing the contribution of TRPV2 activation to axonal outgrowth remain unclear. In this study, we examined this mechanism. Overexpression of TRPV2 enhanced axonal outgrowth in a mechanical stimulus-dependent manner. Accumulation of TRPV2 at the cell surface was 4-fold greater in the growth cone compared to the soma. In the growth cone, TRPV2 is not static, but dynamically accumulates (withi