Crossed nervous systems
bmacnevi at sdcc13.ucsd.edu
Thu Jul 21 15:06:37 EST 1994
During development, vertebrates undergo a "flip" in which their
previously dorsal and ventral sides switch and the 'head' is
effectively rotated in the opposite orientation. That it, what
forms the dorsal side in an invertebrate forms the ventral side of a
vertebrate excluding the area to form the brain. Don't know why
this happens, but it could be one explaination to the development of
the crossed nervous system found in vertebrates.
I could have the thing about the head rotation wrong. I just had a
class on developmental neurobiology last quarter and the professor
merely grazed past the subject because he and nobody else could
explain why it happened.
Hope this helps.
bmacnevi at ucsd.edu
More information about the Neur-sci