Human cortical development

…cell's spatial origin and its changing developmental state. Work in simpler nervous systems provides molecular examples that can inform the study of human cortical development.

Down syndrome is a common neurodevelopmental condition and major genetic cause of intellectual disability. Although trisomy of chromosome 21 is long known as underlying cause, it is not well understood how the increased dosage of over 300 genes on chromosome 21 perturbs transcriptional and epigenetic programmes underlying neural differentiation, and effective therapies are lacking. Mouse models have suggested potential underlying mechanisms, but it is unclear to what extent these are recapitulated in the human brain.Here, we use single cell transcriptomics and epigenomics to generate an atlas

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) impose a global burden, affecting an increasing number of individuals. While some causative genes have been identified, understanding the human-specific mechanisms involved in these disorders remains limited. Traditional gene-driven approaches for modeling brain diseases have failed to capture the diverse and convergent mechanisms at play. Centrosomes and cilia act as intermediaries between environmental and intrinsic signals, regulating cellular behavior. Mutations or dosage variations disrupting their function have been linked to brain formation deficits,