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The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry

Evolution and development are interdependent, particularly with regard to the construction of the nervous system and its position as the machine that produces behavior. On the one hand, the processes directing development and plasticity of the brain provide avenues through which natural selection ca...

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Autor principal: Pallas, Sarah L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487431/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28701910
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2017.00344
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author Pallas, Sarah L.
author_facet Pallas, Sarah L.
author_sort Pallas, Sarah L.
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description Evolution and development are interdependent, particularly with regard to the construction of the nervous system and its position as the machine that produces behavior. On the one hand, the processes directing development and plasticity of the brain provide avenues through which natural selection can sculpt neural cell fate and connectivity, and on the other hand, they are themselves subject to selection pressure. For example, mutations that produce heritable perturbations in neuronal birth and death rates, transcription factor expression, or availability of axon guidance factors within sensory pathways can markedly affect the development of form and thus the function of stimulus decoding circuitry. This evolvability of flexible circuits makes them more adaptable to environmental variation. Although there is general agreement on this point, whether the sensitivity of circuits to environmental influence and the mechanisms underlying development and plasticity of sensory pathways are similar across species from different ecological niches has received almost no attention. Neural circuits are generally more sensitive to environmental influences during an early critical period, but not all niches afford the same access to stimuli in early life. Furthermore, depending on predictability of the habitat and ecological niche, sensory coding circuits might be more susceptible to sensory experience in some species than in others. Despite decades of work on understanding the mechanisms underlying critical period plasticity, the importance of ecological niche in visual pathway development has received little attention. Here, I will explore the relationship between critical period plasticity and ecological niche in mammalian sensory pathways.
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spelling pubmed-54874312017-07-12 The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry Pallas, Sarah L. Front Neurosci Neuroscience Evolution and development are interdependent, particularly with regard to the construction of the nervous system and its position as the machine that produces behavior. On the one hand, the processes directing development and plasticity of the brain provide avenues through which natural selection can sculpt neural cell fate and connectivity, and on the other hand, they are themselves subject to selection pressure. For example, mutations that produce heritable perturbations in neuronal birth and death rates, transcription factor expression, or availability of axon guidance factors within sensory pathways can markedly affect the development of form and thus the function of stimulus decoding circuitry. This evolvability of flexible circuits makes them more adaptable to environmental variation. Although there is general agreement on this point, whether the sensitivity of circuits to environmental influence and the mechanisms underlying development and plasticity of sensory pathways are similar across species from different ecological niches has received almost no attention. Neural circuits are generally more sensitive to environmental influences during an early critical period, but not all niches afford the same access to stimuli in early life. Furthermore, depending on predictability of the habitat and ecological niche, sensory coding circuits might be more susceptible to sensory experience in some species than in others. Despite decades of work on understanding the mechanisms underlying critical period plasticity, the importance of ecological niche in visual pathway development has received little attention. Here, I will explore the relationship between critical period plasticity and ecological niche in mammalian sensory pathways. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-06-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5487431/ /pubmed/28701910 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2017.00344 Text en Copyright © 2017 Pallas. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Pallas, Sarah L.
The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry
title The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry
title_full The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry
title_fullStr The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry
title_full_unstemmed The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry
title_short The Impact of Ecological Niche on Adaptive Flexibility of Sensory Circuitry
title_sort impact of ecological niche on adaptive flexibility of sensory circuitry
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487431/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28701910
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2017.00344
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