Nervous System Observation Report

It was not the most fortunate way how I realised what field I am really interested in. I got to know about drugs and their effects at a very young age due to family illnesses. Already interested in sciences, I became aware of the importance of medicaments through the treatments of cancer undergone by both of my grandmothers. This journey taught me how necessary field of work pharmacology is, therefore this is the degree I am pursuing. I decided to choose the Kageyama laboratory researching neural development and cell differentiation, because I am particularly interested in resolving the puzzling question of treating neurodegenerative diseases. I consider the point of development an interesting time for investigating the causative effects, and …show more content…
Glial cell functions include neuronal survival control during development. In the peripheral nervous system they release trophic and growth signals to keep developing neurons alive. In early development excessive number of neurons are produced to innervate limbs. These neurons degenerate during reaching the mature state of the body so the adult limb would contain the appropriate number of neurones. In this grown state, the general neurotrophic theory states that the target controls survival of the cell that innervates it.
Amputation or grafting during the development process results in degeneration of less and more neurones respectively, so the number of mature neurones is not …show more content…
The question is, does this adjustment involve new neurones or the branching of existing ones.
The experimental methods are more straightforward for the decrease in size, as the results come from the definition of the neurotrophic theory. If the target no longer exists, the survival factors will not be released, furthermore, smaller targets release less factors, consequently the unsupported cells will die. So negative changes in body volume result in a decreased number of neurones.
To test whether new neurons are required to adjust to a larger body volume the methods are more complicated. Likely enough, the increase in size goes hand in hand with an increased number of differentiated cells of the body. The mode of innervation of these cells could be investigated by an indirect method. The experiment would test if these cells attract neurones by chemotaxis by releasing factors to their environment. Many factors are known to be important in the growth and guidance of axons to their targets, examples include semaphorins, ephrins and neurotrophins. By screeing for these factors the mode of innervation can be