ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we return to the subject of nervous system wiring, a problem of central importance in neurobiology. We will apply what we learned in Chapter 5’s discussion of visual system wiring to the rest of the nervous system and expand on the principles that govern these wiring processes. We will examine the daunting task of establishing trillions of synaptic connections among billions of neurons by asking two deceptively simple questions: (1) How do individual neurons differentiate and connect with their partners, and (2) how do groups of neurons wire in a coordinated manner to form a functional circuit, such as a neural map?
