Why Does the Face Predict the Brain? Neural Crest Induction, Craniofacial Morphogenesis, and Neural Circuit Development

Mesenchephalic and rhombencephalic neural crest cells generate the craniofacial skeleton, special sensory organs, and subsets of cranial sensory receptor neurons. They do so while preserving the anterior-posterior (A-P) identity of their neural tube origins. This organizational principle is paralleled by central nervous system circuits that receive and process information from facial structures whose A-P identity is in register with that in the brain. Prior to morphogenesis of the face and its circuits, however, neural crest cells act as “inductive ambassadors” from distinct regions of the neural tube to induce differentiation of target craniofacial domains and establish an initial interface between the brain and face. At every site of bilateral, non-axial secondary induction, neural crest constitutes all or some of the mesenchymal compartment for non-axial mesenchymal/epithelial (M/E) interactions. Thus, for epithelial domains in the craniofacial primordia, aortic arches, limbs, the spinal cord, and the forebrain (Fb), neural crest-derived mesenchymal cells establish local sources of inductive signaling molecules that drive morphogenesis and cellular differentiation. This common mechanism for building brains, faces, limbs, and hearts, A-P axis specified, neural crest-mediated M/E induction, coordinates differentiation of distal structures, peripheral neurons that provide their sensory or autonomic innervation in some cases, and central neural circuits that regulate their behavioral functions. The essential role of this neural crest-mediated mechanism identifies it as a prime target for pathogenesis in a broad range of neurodevelopmental disorders. Thus, the face and the brain “predict” one another, and this mutual developmental relationship provides a key target for disruption by developmental pathology.