Re:Brainless Embryos Suggest Bioelectricity Guides Growth
by Para2016 on Thursday March 15, 2018 @07:10AM
(#16591784)
Nice. I assumed NGF interactions with other developmental signalers like SHH, BMP, etc was the mechanism of action in this anyways.
It's been a while since I was in a devo lab, but I've watched a few presentations regarding wound healing and denervation such as seen in paraplegics with sacral ulcers. The hypothesis was that the nerves were gone and therefore NGF and other trophic factors were gone leading to impaired healing. I'm assuming healing and development are nearly synonymous in some tissues. Like you said, it's not the electrical signals that necessarily matter that much, it's the chemicals produced by the nerves.
Meanwhile, in terms of the parent article, yes- it turns out that "bioelectricity" is an important part of the embryonic development. But this is not at all serving the same role as DNA; DNA stores durable information, whereas these fields are being used for, essentially, intercellular communication. I would think that the fact that the researchers successfully replace a frog's entire brain, for developmental purposes, with a simple tweak to an ion channel, pretty clearly demonstrates that the amount of vital information being carried this way is minimal.