Trigeminal Primary Afferent Organization and Development

大脑通过感觉神经细胞感知外部环境。这些细胞与皮肤上的小感觉器官相连，另一端与大脑中的神经细胞相连。为了使生物体正确地理解来自环境的信号，感觉神经细胞必须在正确的感觉器官和正确的脑细胞之间建立正确的连接。这个项目将研究这些适当的连接是如何在胚胎发育过程中形成的。感觉神经细胞和皮肤之间的正常连接将以神经受损后的方式发生改变。然后将确定感觉神经细胞与皮肤连接的变化如何反过来改变它们与大脑中哪些细胞连接。这个项目有可能提高我们对在胚胎发育和损伤后神经再生过程中促进神经细胞之间适当连接的机制的理解。

The brain is made aware of the external environment by sensory nerve cells. These cells connect both to small sense organs in the skin, and, at their other end, to nerve cells in the brain. In order for the organism to properly understand signals from its environment, the sensory nerve cell must make the proper connection between the correct sense organ and the correct brain cell. This project will examine how these proper connections are made during embryonic development. The normal connections between sensory nerve cells and the skin will be modified in a way that would occur after nerve damage. It will then be determined how changes in the sensory nerve cell's connections to the skin in turn changes which cells they connect to in the brain. This project has the potential to improve our understanding of the mechanisms that promote proper connections among nerve cells during embryonic development and during regeneration of nerves after injury.