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Molecular and cellular mechanisms of cortical expansion and folding in brain development and evolution

JU Xiang-Chun, HOU Qiong-Qiong, XIAO Qi, LUO Zhen-Ge

1Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences； 2CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology； 3State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China

Abstract

During the evolution from primates to humans, the size of cerebral cortex is increased by forming more gyri and sulci, which is believed to be highly associated with cognitive abilities and the basis of higher brain functions in humans. Accumulating lines of evidence have shown that the cortical size is regulated both by protein-coding genes and non-coding RNAs. In particular, the recently identified outer radial glial cells (oRGs) distributed in the outer subventricular zone (oSVZ) of gyrencephalic brains, have been considered to be important for cortical expansion and folding. This review summarizes recent progresses in the understanding of cortex expansion and discusses the potential molecular and cellular mechanisms of cortical folding.

Key words: cortical expansion; cortical folding ; outer radial glial cells

Received: 2016-12-05　　Accepted: 2017-01-06

Corresponding author: 居相春　　E-mail: xcju@ion.ac.cn

Citing This Article：

JU Xiang-Chun, HOU Qiong-Qiong, XIAO Qi, LUO Zhen-Ge. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of cortical expansion and folding in brain development and evolution. Acta Physiol Sin 2017; 69 (4): 485-497 (in Chinese with English abstract).