Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Somatotopy is a key organisational principle of the central nervous system. It describes a phenomenon where neurons and their connections are arranged according to the layout of the body. For example, Dr. Wilder Penfield while working at the Montreal Neurological Institute famously demonstrated that the sensory and motor areas of the brain are organised into somatotopic "maps" of the body. We now know that somatotopy exists in many other regions within the central nervous system including different levels of the brainstem and spinal cord. However, very little is known about how somatotopy emerges in the developing nervous system. I hypothesize that two proteins, Teneurin-3 and Latrophilin-2, are crucial for setting up somatotopy within the spinal cord by directing connections from sensory neurons to their correct targets. These two proteins were recently identified to have a similar role in establishing the connections between certain brain regions. They also exist within the spinal cord in patterns that correspond to the somatotopic layout of the spinal cord. My work will provide a significant advancement to our understanding of how somatotopy develops by determining how somatotopic arrangement comes about at the first step of sensory pathways. This could then reveal how somatotopy develops throughout the central nervous system.