Evolutionary origin of sensory and neurosecretory cell types: Vertebrate cranial placodes, Volume 2

Schlosser, Gerhard. (2021). Evolutionary origin of sensory and neurosecretory cell types: Vertebrate cranial placodes, Volume 2. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Abstract

Our senses provide us with a richness of experiences that we all too often take for granted. Without our sense organs, our world would be a silent and dark place (not a place at all, really). Yet, we share our sophisticated ears, eyes and noses only with our fellow vertebrates. The senses of their closest living relatives, the tunicates (including sea squirts) and lancelets (or amphioxus), are much simpler. Accordingly, these animals live in a much simpler sensory world. Many other animals get around with an even more basic outfit of sensory cells - isolated cells scattered through their outer tissues - which do not form complex sense organs at all. So how did the vertebrate head become equipped with these complicated new sensory organs? How do they develop in the vertebrate embryo? And how did they evolve from the simpler sensory system of our invertebrate ancestors? These are the core questions that this book and its companion try to answer. The second volume of the set considers the evolutionary origin of the sensory and neurosecretory cell types developing from cranial placodes and of photoreceptors. Chapter 1 summarizes our current understanding of vertebrate evolution and presents a brief survey of body plans and embryonic development of their closest relatives (tunicates, amphioxus, hemichordates and echinoderms). Chapter 2 clarifies conceptual issues relating to homology and evolutionary innovation and introduces an evolutionary concept of cell types. Chapters 3 to 5 then compare the sensory and neurosecretory cell types of the vertebrate head with similar cell types in other animals to get insights into their evolutionary origins. While chapter 3 reviews the evolution of mechano- and chemosensory cells, chapter 4 considers photosensory cells and chapter 5 neurosecretory cells. These comparative chapters will show that many sensory cell types have a long evolutionary history. The final chapter, chapter 6, then addresses the question of how cranial placodes evolved as novel structures in vertebrates by redeploying pre-existing and sometimes evolutionarily ancient cell types.

Publisher

CRC Press

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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Zoology (Books)