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Developmental maps of the brain trace when cell types emerge

A large consortium of researchers has mapped how brain cells establish diverse identities throughout neurodevelopment and across species.
By
  1. Emily Sylwestrak

    1. Emily Sylwestrak is in the Department of Biology and at the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA.

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The brain’s vast diversity of cell types has long captivated neuroscientists, who first began organizing brain cells into atlases on the basis of their form, function or where they originated in embryonic development. In the past decade, advances in DNA- and RNA-sequencing technologies and computational analyses have helped to refine, or, in some cases, redefine, cell types — most commonly using transcriptomes, the complete set of RNA molecules produced by a cell. The result is a picture of adult cell types with unprecedented resolution. But early in development, cell identities are more like a motion picture than a single frame. A series of studies by the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) charts a new domain in brain-cell specification: time. Their work highlights the dynamic nature of gene expression and cell identity across the development of a single animal, or the evolution of a species.

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Nature 647, 41-42 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03450-5

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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