The vestibular system is the dominating sensory element to detect head/body motion. The encoded signals are essential to stabilize gaze and posture during locomotion, to control autonomic function and to update navigation circuits to orient and maneuver in space. Thus, all animals require functional peripheral structures and pathways as well as central networks to ensure adequate sensory-motor transformations that allow efficient locomotor activity as soon as the respective motor elements have been developed. The diversity of endorgans and neuronal elements in the inner ear are formed through precise genetic instructions and timelines. These latter events create parallel and sequential elements that allow encoding and transmitting of spatially and dynamically diverse sensory information during body motion in space. During this period, neural computations must be rapidly implemented to ensure the execution of adequate behavioral reactions that generate visual and postural stability. Accordingly, the developmental establishment of a functional vestibular system is key for goal-oriented locomotion.
This research topic covers the genetic regulation of the vestibular placode transformation, the embryonic and postembryonic timeline for the establishment of structural and neuronal elements and the onset and maturation of behavioral reactions that allow animals to freely locomote. The increasing knowledge of genetic interactions and molecular pathways during formation of the respective sensory structures and pathways provides a solid substrate to understand the key events in the developmental assembly of this system. While fully established neuronal circuits are a prerequisite for peripheral and central vestibular computations, behavioral reactions require adequate sensitivities of the endorgans and cellular elements as well as specific connectivity with motor elements in the brainstem and spinal cord, and ascending pathways to subcortical and cortical circuits. Recent advances in the understanding of how vestibular signals are integrated with other motion-related sensory signals, such as visual motion, proprioception and motor efference copies have demonstrated those events and features that assist in the adequate spatio-temporal tuning of vestibulo-motor behaviors during ontogeny. Thus, for a holistic comprehension of how to form a functional vestibular system it is necessary to not only understand the genetic regulatory scheme of the assembly but also dissociate the steps of how vestibulo-motor behaviors become optimally tuned through motor efficiency and emerging sensory feedback.
Understanding the different steps and events that lead to the ontogenetic establishment of vestibulo-motor behaviors requires a rather broad approach with contributions from different fields, methods, and model systems. Accordingly, this research topic accepts contributions from different scientific approaches that collectively aim at understanding individual aspects of the formation of the inner ear, the establishment of the connections with the brain, the implementation of neuronal computations in vestibular networks and the production of vestibulo-motor behaviors. This includes original contributions as well as review and mini reviews related, but not limited to:
• Genetic regulation of inner ear formation
• Molecular pathway specification in the establishment of hair cells and afferent fibers
• Ontogenetic rules and regulations in forming central vestibular connections
• Developmental establishment and maturation of vestibular-related motor reactions in animals and humans
• Pathologies and failures to establish appropriate vestibulo-motor responses in animals and humans
The vestibular system is the dominating sensory element to detect head/body motion. The encoded signals are essential to stabilize gaze and posture during locomotion, to control autonomic function and to update navigation circuits to orient and maneuver in space. Thus, all animals require functional peripheral structures and pathways as well as central networks to ensure adequate sensory-motor transformations that allow efficient locomotor activity as soon as the respective motor elements have been developed. The diversity of endorgans and neuronal elements in the inner ear are formed through precise genetic instructions and timelines. These latter events create parallel and sequential elements that allow encoding and transmitting of spatially and dynamically diverse sensory information during body motion in space. During this period, neural computations must be rapidly implemented to ensure the execution of adequate behavioral reactions that generate visual and postural stability. Accordingly, the developmental establishment of a functional vestibular system is key for goal-oriented locomotion.
This research topic covers the genetic regulation of the vestibular placode transformation, the embryonic and postembryonic timeline for the establishment of structural and neuronal elements and the onset and maturation of behavioral reactions that allow animals to freely locomote. The increasing knowledge of genetic interactions and molecular pathways during formation of the respective sensory structures and pathways provides a solid substrate to understand the key events in the developmental assembly of this system. While fully established neuronal circuits are a prerequisite for peripheral and central vestibular computations, behavioral reactions require adequate sensitivities of the endorgans and cellular elements as well as specific connectivity with motor elements in the brainstem and spinal cord, and ascending pathways to subcortical and cortical circuits. Recent advances in the understanding of how vestibular signals are integrated with other motion-related sensory signals, such as visual motion, proprioception and motor efference copies have demonstrated those events and features that assist in the adequate spatio-temporal tuning of vestibulo-motor behaviors during ontogeny. Thus, for a holistic comprehension of how to form a functional vestibular system it is necessary to not only understand the genetic regulatory scheme of the assembly but also dissociate the steps of how vestibulo-motor behaviors become optimally tuned through motor efficiency and emerging sensory feedback.
Understanding the different steps and events that lead to the ontogenetic establishment of vestibulo-motor behaviors requires a rather broad approach with contributions from different fields, methods, and model systems. Accordingly, this research topic accepts contributions from different scientific approaches that collectively aim at understanding individual aspects of the formation of the inner ear, the establishment of the connections with the brain, the implementation of neuronal computations in vestibular networks and the production of vestibulo-motor behaviors. This includes original contributions as well as review and mini reviews related, but not limited to:
• Genetic regulation of inner ear formation
• Molecular pathway specification in the establishment of hair cells and afferent fibers
• Ontogenetic rules and regulations in forming central vestibular connections
• Developmental establishment and maturation of vestibular-related motor reactions in animals and humans
• Pathologies and failures to establish appropriate vestibulo-motor responses in animals and humans