Determining how evolution shapes the molecular diversity of neurons in the brain

The evolution of neuropeptides has helped to generate a diverse set of sub-functional

neuronal populations and brain circuits. However, we do not fully understand how

these neuropeptide groups have evolved functionally, and howchanges in the

diversity of neuronal populations impacts behavioral variation. We have recently

identified several groups that exhibit an increase or decrease in cell number and are now

utilizing CRISPR Cas-9 gene editing to ask how variation in these neuronal subsets relate to

behavioral evolution in cavefish, and more importantly how those changes relate to

neuronal evolution in the vertebrate brain.