Brain Diversity Develops at the Boundaries

大脑是脊椎动物中被研究得最多的器官之一，然而生物学家对大脑结构的多样性是如何进化的知之甚少。在这个项目中，主要研究者和团队成员将使用发育生物学的技术来询问(i)何时首次观察到大脑大小和形状的变化以及（ii）哪些基因网络导致了这种变化。实验将在东非马拉维湖的慈鲷身上进行，那里的大脑多样性与哺乳动物的大脑多样性相当。研究人员将测试大脑多样性在发育早期随着主要神经边界的建立而发展的假设。该项目为少数民族研究生提供培训机会，并为世界各地的本科生和研究生提供教育机会。该项目涉及教师、博士后、研究生和本科生参与跨学科生物学培训项目。目前，研究团队在社区教育方面投入了大量资金，采用儿童生物多样性作为开发教师教育计划和高中课程的模式，以满足新的佐治亚州绩效标准。在未来，学生将建立讲座模块，并发布在网络资源Connexions （http://cnx.org/）上。这些课程模块可以与全球学生共享，也可以汇编成基于网络的课程。

The brain is one of the best-studied vertebrate organs, and yet biologists know very little about how the diversity of brain structure evolves. In this project the primary investigator and team members will use the techniques of developmental biology to ask (i) when variation in brain size and shape is first observed and (ii) which gene networks contribute to this variation. Experiments will be conducted on cichlid fishes from Lake Malawi, East Africa, where brain diversity is comparable to that seen across mammals. The investigators will test the hypothesis that brain diversity develops early in development as major neural boundaries are established. This project provides training opportunities for minority graduate students and provides educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students worldwide. The project involves faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates participating in interdisciplinary biology training programs. Presently, the research team is heavily invested in community education, employing cichlid biological diversity as a model to develop teacher education programs and high school curricula, geared to address new Georgia Performance Standards. In the future students will build lecture modules to be posted at the web resource Connexions (http://cnx.org/). These lecture modules can be shared with students globally and can be compiled into web-based courses.