The Development of the Neocortex
We used a variety of methods to investigate neuronal birthdays, embryonic development and cell migration in the rat neocortex. All that was published in 1991 by Raven Press, NEOCORTICAL DEVELOPMENT. That book is out of print and we have obtained permission to reproduce it on this website. Each chapter is available for PDF download. For some chapters, we have included larger copies of figures, and we have written reviews of post-1991 literature; these chapters have a long download time because of the larger graphic files (files 4, 7, 10 and 12 in the below list).
The photo series on the left shows the different levels we used to determine the time of origin of neurons in different parts of the neocortex with 3H-thymidine autoradiography (Chapter 3, Figure 3-6; pdf file #5 in the list below). L1-L5 are the levels from most anterior (1) to most posterior (5). The straight black bars separate different areas of the cortex: Ai-agranular insular, CG- cingulate, FR-frontal, GU-gustatory, OCL-lateral occipital, OCM-medial occipital, PAR-parietal, PR-perirhinal, RS-retrosplenial, TE-temporal. The dashed lines indicate dorsomedial (DM), dorsolateral (DL) and ventrolateral (VL) strips of cortex that are reproduced at high magnification in Chapter 3, Figure 3-7 (pdf file #5 below).
We think that the concepts presented in this book are relevant today, and this developmental treatise remains the most comprehensive study of neocortical development in any mammal. The recent research on gene expression studies confirms some of our observations and speculations about the mechanisms at work during neocortical development.
