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The cerebral cortex is the source of our most complex cognitive capabilities and a vulnerable target of many neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Transcriptomics offers a new approach to understanding the cortex at the level of its underlying genetic code, and rapid technological advances have propelled this field to the high-throughput study of the complete set of transcribed genes at increasingly fine resolution to the level of individual cells. These tools have revealed features of the genetic architecture of adult cortical areas, layers, and cell types, as well as spatiotemporal patterning during development. This has allowed a fresh look at comparative anatomy as well, illustrating surprisingly large differences between mammals while at the same time revealing conservation of some features from avians to mammals. Finally, transcriptomics is fueling progress in understanding the causes of neurodevelopmental diseases such as autism, linking genetic association studies to specific molecular pathways and affected brain regions.

Original publication

DOI

10.1146/annurev-neuro-070815-013858

Type

Journal article

Journal

Annual Review of Neuroscience

Publisher

Annual Reviews

Publication Date

29/06/2017

Volume

40

Pages

629 - 652

Keywords

nonhuman primate, human, chick, mouse, autism, transcriptome, cerebral cortex