Genetic Regulation of Early Nervous System Development

Abstract The primordium of the central nervous system, the neural tube, appears by the end of the fourth week of human gestation. The neural tube develops through the process of neurulation, a set of morphogenetic movements that transform part of the embryonic ectoderm into the three dimensional neural tube. In the first step of this process, the neural plate is induced from the dorsal ectoderm by the underlying mesoderm, while in subsequent steps the neural plate becomes shaped and folded into the neural tube.