Evolution of the nervous system
We are intrigued by a big mystery in animal evolution: how did the nervous systems emerge? What did it first look like and how did it function? Our lab has established a new molecular animal model, the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, amenable to high throughput genomics and imaging approaches and functional interference techniques. In a comparative approach, Platynereis is informative about Urbilateria, the last common bilaterian ancestors.
Keywords
Eye evolution / cell type evolution / nervous system evolution / axis inversion / Platynereis dumerilii