Some landmarks of embryonic neural development include the birth and differentiation of neurons from stem cell precursors, the migration of immature neurons from their birthplaces in the embryo to their final positions, outgrowth of axons from neurons and guidance of the motile growth cone through the embryo towards postsynaptic partners, the generation of synapses between these axons and their postsynaptic partners, and finally the lifelong changes in synapses which are thought to underlie learning and memory.
Human brain development
Highly schematic flowchart of human brain development.
Neuraldevelopment is one of the earliest to begin and the last to be complete, generating the most complex structure within the embryo.
Development of the neural system continues throughout our entire life, from the early trilaminar embryo, through embryonic, fetal, newborn, postnatally and continues to be remodelled at the synaptic level.
Note that the edge of the neural plate forms the neural crest which contributes the cranial ganglia, peripheral sympathetic and parasympatheic nervous system as well as many non-neural tissues (this part of the nervous system is covered in Neural crest Notes).
This is one of the first books to study neuraldevelopment using computational and mathematical modeling.
Most neural modeling focuses on information processing in the adult nervous system; Modeling NeuralDevelopment shows how models can be used to study the development of the nervous system at different levels of organization and at different phases of development, from molecule to system and from neurulation to cognition.
The science of studying neuraldevelopment by computational and mathematical modeling is relatively new; this book, as Dale Purves writes in the foreword, "serves as an important progress report" in the effort to understand the complexities of neuraldevelopment.
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