美国霍华德休斯医学研究所Philipp J. Keller和Yinan Wan等研究人员，在整个发育神经回路中利用单细胞示踪成像技术重构了新兴神经元群体的活动。2019年9月26日，《细胞》在线发表了这项成果。

研究人员提出了一种成像方法，用于从神经发生到指示最早的自发运动行为的模式化活动的出现，全面跟踪整个发育中的斑马鱼脊髓的神经元谱系、运动、分子身份和活动。研究人员发现运动神经元首先是活跃的，并与邻近的神经元形成局部模式的集成。这些集成合并，达到阈值大小后全局同步，最后招募连合中间神经元以协调对脊椎动物运动很重要的左右交替模式。单个神经元根据其出生时间和解剖学起源定型地进行功能性成熟。

这项研究提供了重构胚胎发生过程中如何发挥功能性回路的通用策略。

研究人员表示，动物的生存需要在胚胎发生过程中发育正常的神经系统。新生神经元必须组装成产生能够指示行为的活动模式的回路。要阐明该过程的协调方式，需要采用新方法，这些方法应遵循整个发育回路中所有细胞的成熟和活动。

附：英文原文

Title: Single-Cell Reconstruction of Emerging Population Activity in an Entire Developing Circuit

Author: Yinan Wan, Ziqiang Wei, Loren L. Looger, Minoru Koyama, Shaul Druckmann, Philipp J. Keller

Issue&Volume: 26 September 2019

Abstract: 

Animal survival requires a functioning nervous system to develop during embryogenesis. Newborn neurons must assemble into circuits producing activity patterns capable of instructing behaviors. Elucidating how this process is coordinated requires new methods that follow maturation and activity of all cells across a developing circuit. We present an imaging method for comprehensively tracking neuron lineages, movements, molecular identities, and activity in the entire developing zebrafish spinal cord, from neurogenesis until the emergence of patterned activity instructing the earliest spontaneous motor behavior. We found that motoneurons are active first and form local patterned ensembles with neighboring neurons. These ensembles merge, synchronize globally after reaching a threshold size, and finally recruit commissural interneurons to orchestrate the left-right alternating patterns important for locomotion in vertebrates. Individual neurons undergo functional maturation stereotypically based on their birth time and anatomical origin. Our study provides a general strategy for reconstructing how functioning circuits emerge during embryogenesis.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.08.039

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30958-4