Objective
Intracerebral grafting is considered today a powerful tool for addressing fundamental questions about development and regenerative phenomena in the central nervous system (CNS) and as a potential therapy for neurodegenerative diseases. Recent laboratory observations suggest that molecules which are necessary for axon guidance in the developing CNS are re-expressed after lesions and that regenerating axons are able to recognize such guidance cues. Thus regenerating axons might be able to re-establish topographically ordered functional synapses in their target regions.
This project is to extend the knowledge of the factors controlling host-graft interconnections during neural development or during the process of regeneration and to examine the functional capacity of the graft. The goals of the project are to determine the factors that lead a transplanted cell to attract host-specific afferents and make this cell develop efferents towards specific targets of the host; and to assess the functional integration of the graft with the host central nervous system by using electrophysiological or metabolic indicators or by studying some aspects of gene expression by the transplant cells.
The project will study two different networks of the mammalian visual system: the retinotectal system and the corticopetal and corticofugal systems. Both systems will be studied in vivo and in vitro.
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
Data not availableCoordinator
86022 Poitiers
France