Precursor of spine and brain forms passively
Researchers from the Computational Biology group of Dagmar Iber have conducted a detailed study of neurulation – how the neural tube forms during embryonic development. They conclude that this happens less actively than previously thought. This also has implications for understanding defects such as spina bifida.
In the human embryo, the neural tube forms between the 22nd and 26th day of pregnancy. Later, the brain and spinal cord will develop from this tube. The neural tube forms when an elongated flat tissue structure, the neural plate, bends lengthwise into a U shape and closes to form a tube. What drives this development is not yet clear. Researchers in the group of Dagmar Iber, Professor of Computational Biology at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel, have now been able to show in a study published in the journal PNAS that the surrounding tissue is likely to play a significant role by exerting pressure from the outside.
Find original ETH news article.
Learn about the Computational Biology group headed by Dagmar Iber.
Reference to scientific publication:
de Goederen V, Vetter R, McDole K, Iber D (2022) external pageHingepoint emergence in mammalia spinal neurulation. PNAS, 119: e2117075119, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2117075119