American Plan vs. British Plan
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The "American plan" and "British plan" were proposed by British genetecist Sydney Brenner as competing models for the way brain cells determine their neural functions.
According to the British plan, the function of cells is determined by its genetic lineage. Therefore, a mother cell with a specific function (for instance, interpreting visual information) would create daughter cells with similar functions.
According to the American plan, a brain cell's function is determined by the function of its neigbors after cell migration. If a cell migrates to an area in the visual cortex, the cell will adopt the function of its neigboring visual cortex cells, guided by chemical and axonal signals from these cells. If the same cell migrates to the auditory cortex, it would develop functions related to hearing, irregarless of its genetic lineage
[edit] References
- The Science Times Book of the Brain 1998. Edited by Nicholas Wade. The Lyons Press
