Maintaining your youthful spontaneity: microcircuit homeostasis in the embryonic spinal cord.
Many developing networks generate spontaneous network activity (SNA) that plays an important role in setting up functional circuitry, but how the proper level and pattern of SNA is itself maintained has not been clear. In this issue of Neuron, Gonzalez-Islas and Wenner show that SNA in the intact embryo regulates itself through a set of adaptive homeostatic plasticity mechanisms.
Department of Biology and Center for Behavioral Genomics, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454, USA.
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D000818:Animals; D002642:Chick Embryo; D006706:Homeostasis / Q000502:physiology*; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology*; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000166:cytology / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology