How do brains wire up?

The brain is made up of billions of nerve cells, or neurons, wired together in a highly complex and organised way. But how do they know where to go when the brain is developing?
These remarkable time-lapse movies capture the journey of living neurons in the frog brain. Narrated by Professor Christine Holt, these movies show some of the discoveries of her research group in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience.

Movie credits: Sonia Witte, Trina Lu Bo, Hanno Svoboda and Christine Holt
Read more: @/journeys-of-discovery-wiring-the-brain

Holt, C.E. and Harris, W.A. Order in the initial retinotectal map in Xenopus: A new technique for labelling growing nerve fibers. Nature 301:150-152 (1983)

Harris, W.A., Holt, C.E. and Bonhoeffer, F. Retinal axons with and without their somata, growing to and arborizing in the tectum of Xenopus embryos: A time-lapse video study of single fibers in vivo. Development 101:121-133 (1987)

Nakagawa, S-i., Brennan, C., Johnson, K., Shewan, D., Harris, W.A. and Holt, C.E. Ephrin-B regulates the ipsilateral routing of retinal axons at the optic chiasm. Neuron 25: 599-610 (2000)
Campbell, D.S. and Holt, C.E. Chemotropic responses of retinal growth cones mediated by rapid local protein synthesis and degradation. Neuron 32: 1013-1026 (2001)
Leung, K-M., van Horck, F.P.G., Lin, A.C., Allison, R., Standart, N. and CE. Holt, C.E.Asymmetrical b-actin mRNA translation in growth cones mediates attractive turning to netrin-1. Nature Neuroscience Oct; 9 (10):1247-56 (2006) Epub 2006 Sep 17

Zivraj, K., Tung, L., Piper, M., Gumy, L., Fawcett, J., Yeo, G. and Holt, C.E. Subcellular profiling reveals distinct and developmentally regulated repertoire of growth cone mRNAs. J. Neurosci. 30(46):15464-78 (2010)

Shigeoka, T., Jung, H., Jung, J., Turner-Bridger,, B., Ohk, J., Lin, J.Q., Amieux, P.S. and Holt, C.E. Dynamic axonal translation in developing and mature visual circuits. Cell Jun 30; 166(1):181-92 (2016)

Wong, H.H., Lin, J.Q., Ströhl, F., Roque, C.G., Cioni,, J.M., Cagnetta, R., Turner-Bridger, B., Laine, R., Harris, W.A., Kaminski, C.F. and Holt, C.E. RNA docking and local translation regulate site-specific axon remodelling in vivo. Neuron 95(4) doi: 10.1016/j.neuron Aug (2017)

Holt, C.E., Martin, K.C. and Schuman., E.M. Local Translation in Neurons: visualization and function. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. 26(7):557-566 Jul 2019