{"id":232564,"date":"2026-03-04T21:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/scientists-put-forward-a-new-theory-of-brain-development"},"modified":"2026-03-04T21:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:06:10","slug":"scientists-put-forward-a-new-theory-of-brain-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/scientists-put-forward-a-new-theory-of-brain-development","title":{"rendered":"Scientists put forward a new theory of brain development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-put-forward-a-new-theory-of-brain-development2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Your brain begins as a single cell. When all is said and done, it will house an incredibly complex and powerful network of some 170 billion cells. How does it organize itself along the way? Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory neuroscientists have come up with a surprisingly simple answer that could have far-reaching implications for biology and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Stan Kerstjens, a postdoc in Professor Anthony Zador\u2019s lab, frames the question in terms of positional information. \u201cThe only thing a cell \u2018sees\u2019 is itself and its neighbors,\u201d he explains. \u201cBut its fate depends on where it sits. A cell in the wrong place becomes the wrong thing, and the brain doesn\u2019t develop right. So, every cell must solve two questions: Where am I? And who do I need to become?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a study published in <em>Neuron<\/em>, Kerstjens, Zador, and colleagues at Harvard University and ETH Z\u00fcrich put forward a new theory for how the brain organizes itself during development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your brain begins as a single cell. When all is said and done, it will house an incredibly complex and powerful network of some 170 billion cells. How does it organize itself along the way? Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory neuroscientists have come up with a surprisingly simple answer that could have far-reaching implications for biology [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-habitats","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}