Many significant human birth defects originate around the time of neural tube closure or early during post-closure nervous system development. For example, failure of the neural tube to close generates anencephaly and spina bifida, faulty cell cycle progression is implicated in primary microcephaly, while defective migration of neuroblasts can lead to neuronal migration disorders such as lissen...

It is generally accepted that the sharp tuning observed at the characteristic frequency (CF) auditory nerve fibre can be attributed to the sharp mechanical response at the corresponding position of the basilar membrane (at the Best Place BP). This observation has resulted in attention being focused on the basilar membrane and away from other micromechanical structures in the cochlea. However, a...

Membrane proteins are vital type of proteins that serve as channels, receptors, and energy transducers in a cell. Prediction of membrane protein types is an important research area in bioinformatics. Knowledge of membrane protein types provides some valuable information for predicting novel example of the membrane protein types. However, classification of membrane protein types can be both time...

In this handout, I consider membrane potential to be the key quantity. I take the point of view that action potentials are just a way of encoding (for transmission) the continuous membrane potential signals. In fact, the spike encoding/decoding process may perform important additional processing functions in some neural systems, but I ignore this possibility here. Instead I think of the neural ...

Cell differentiation often involves changes in cell polarity. In this study we show that neuroepithelial cells, the progenitors of all neurons and macroglial cells of the vertebrate central nervous system, downregulate the polarized delivery to the apical and basolateral plasma membrane domains during development. Upon infection of the neuroepithelium of mouse embryos with fowl plague virus (FP...

Compartmentalization of the plasma membrane in a cell is fundamental for its proper functions. In this study, we present evidence that mammalian Fat4 and Dachsous1 cadherins regulate the apical plasma membrane organization in the embryonic cerebral cortex. In neural progenitor cells of the cortex, Fat4 and Dachsous1 were concentrated together in a cell-cell contact area positioned more apically...