When is self-organization a mechanism in brain development?

The animal has a brain structure all its own, according to a 2026 preprint. The finding hints that brains could have evolved centralization before regionalization.

Macaques and marmosets recapitulate the condition’s core traits better than mice can, but funding uncertainty and challenges at primate centers in the United States could make this work difficult to continue.

Retinal waves offer a powerful example of a self-organizing system that can build structure without external guidance. The field would do well to embrace such phenomena more broadly as a type of mechanistic explanation.

During brain development, genes set the rules and turn the knobs; self-organization does much of the rest.

Fischbach, who died 25 October, elucidated the dynamic changes in neuromuscular junctions. Beyond the lab, he shaped careers, academic departments and scientific societies.

Finlay, who died on 12 September, championed the idea that developmental constraints dictate how evolution sculpts brains, a concept she used to model the timing of hundreds of events and align them across mammalian species.

Many complex behaviors have stubbornly resisted mechanistic explanations. Deciphering them will require new approaches—and perhaps a new concept of “understanding.”

The two groups study the same behavioral phenomena yet rarely interact or read each other’s work—a mutual blind spot that weakens both fields. New technologies offer a chance to bring them together.

Work by Jeffrey Moran and Robert Desimone showed that monkeys could focus their attention on different stimuli in their visual field without shifting their gaze. Their work marked a key milestone in the emergence of cognitive neuroscience.

Fiona Sanderson, a senior program manager at the Brain Canada Foundation, shares how she got into grant administration and how she helps connect researchers with funding and one another.