Brain Diversity Develops at the Boundaries

大脑多样性在边界上发展

• 批准号: 0922964
• 负责人: Jeffrey Streelman
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0922964&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Brain; Diversity; Develops; Boundaries

The brain is one of the best-studied vertebrate organs, and yet biologists know very little about how the diversity of brain structure evolves. In this project the primary investigator and team members will use the techniques of developmental biology to ask (i) when variation in brain size and shape is first observed and (ii) which gene networks contribute to this variation. Experiments will be conducted on cichlid fishes from Lake Malawi, East Africa, where brain diversity is comparable to that seen across mammals. The investigators will test the hypothesis that brain diversity develops early in development as major neural boundaries are established. This project provides training opportunities for minority graduate students and provides educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students worldwide. The project involves faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates participating in interdisciplinary biology training programs. Presently, the research team is heavily invested in community education, employing cichlid biological diversity as a model to develop teacher education programs and high school curricula, geared to address new Georgia Performance Standards. In the future students will build lecture modules to be posted at the web resource Connexions (http://cnx.org/). These lecture modules can be shared with students globally and can be compiled into web-based courses.

大脑是研究最深入的脊椎动物器官之一，但生物学家对大脑结构的多样性如何进化知之甚少。 在这个项目中，主要研究者和团队成员将使用发育生物学技术来询问（i）何时首次观察到大脑大小和形状的变化以及（ii）哪些基因网络导致了这种变化。 实验将在东非马拉维湖的慈鲷身上进行，那里的大脑多样性与哺乳动物的大脑多样性相当。 研究人员将检验这样的假设：随着主要神经边界的建立，大脑多样性在发育早期就发展起来。 该项目为少数族裔研究生提供培训机会，并为全球本科生和研究生提供教育机会。 该项目涉及教师、博士后、研究生和本科生参加跨学科生物学培训项目。 目前，研究团队大力投资社区教育，采用慈鲷生物多样性作为模型来开发教师教育计划和高中课程，旨在满足新的佐治亚州绩效标准。 将来，学生将构建讲座模块，并将其发布在网络资源 Connexions (http://cnx.org/) 上。 这些讲座模块可以与全球的学生共享，并可以编译成基于网络的课程。