During development neurons are generated by sequential divisions of neural stem cells, or neuroblasts. In the insect brain progeny of certain stem cells form lineage-specific sets of projections that arborize in distinct brain regions, called clonal units. Though this raises the possibility that the entire neural network in the brain might be organized in a clone-dependent fashion, only a small portion of clones has been identified.
Our study showed that the insect brain is formed by a composition of cell-lineage-dependent modules. Clonal analysis reveals organized architecture even in those neuropils without obvious structural landmarks.
Current Biology, online 28 March 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.03.015
