Coupling Neurogenesis to Circuit Formation

"Understanding how complex brain wiring is produced during development is a daunting challenge. In Drosophila, information from 800 retinal ommatidia is processed in distinct brain neuropiles, each subdivided into 800 matching retinotopic columns. The lobula plate comprises four T4 and four T5 neuronal subtypes. T4 neurons respond to bright edge motion, whereas T5 neurons respond to dark edge motion. Each is tuned to motion in one of the four cardinal directions, effectively establishing eight concurrent retinotopic maps to support wide-field motion. We discovered a mode of neurogenesis where two sequential Notch-dependent divisions of either a horizontal or a vertical progenitor produce matching sets of two T4 and two T5 neurons retinotopically coincident with pairwise opposite direction selectivity. We show that retinotopy is an emergent characteristic of this neurogenic program and derives directly from neuronal birth order. Our work illustrates how simple developmental rules can implement complex neural organization.