BRAIN STEM DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS: THE FACIAL NERVE AS A MODEL SYSTEM

A major challenge for future research is to prevent or cure developmental defects of the central nervous system. The ability of animals and humans to carry out their behavioral repertoires depends critically on how nerves grow and interconnect with each other. The major mechanisms involved in brain malformations are mutations in specific genes that perturb gene expression during sensitive developmental stages. Abnormalities caused by impairments during development can lead to neurological dysfunction that may be evident at birth or become obvious only at later stages in life. Therefore, it is important to understand these issues in embryonic life before the brain becomes too complex and difficult to study. This project deals with a sub-population of nerves that innervate muscles and are called motor neurons, which modulate the movement of all our muscles, from the face to the feet. Because of the widespread distribution of motor neurons, the chance to get a wrong connection or an inappropriate location can be high. Therefore, learning more on how motor neurons are born, what makes them move in particular directions and how and why some die and other survive, is the basis of finding new therapies and cures on motor neuron diseases. Our aim is to understand the reasons why a population of motor neurons that innervate the muscles of the face is located in a specific position and what make them move there during embryonic life. Our previous work had already demonstrated that if we block this movement in an animal model, we get symptoms similar to human paralysis. Searching for main players involved in this movement will benefit patients suffering from palsies and other neurodegenerative diseases.