Research Interests

I am interested in how the neurons and circuitries of the vertebrate central nervous system are specified during development. In vertebrate brains, neurons with similar long-distance connections are aggregated into neural centers known as nuclei. Dozens of nuclei can be distinguished in the brains of birds and mammals, and connections among neurons in these brains are in essence connections targeted to different nuclei. Viewed from this perspective, the problem of how neurons make the correct connections with one another in early development is, for studies of vertebrates, a problem of pattern formation: how are neurons allocated to different nuclear fates? and how are nuclei formed?

My laboratory employs cellular and molecular techniques to study this problem of brain nucleogenesis. This research is carried out in chicks and mice. The chick brain is accessible throughout development for fate mapping and cell lineage studies, experimental embryology including tissue transplants, and genetic manipulation by recombinant retrovirus infection and in ovo electroporation. Research on the mouse embryo offers a broad range of reverse genetic technologies and a number of established mutants.

My laboratory has also recently begun to explore two important related issues in evolutionary neurobiology, one on the origins of cerebral cortical cell types in amniotes, the other on the structure and development of large invertebrate brains.

For more information on Evolution and Development at The University of Chicago, please see the Evolution and Development web-site.

Selected Publications

Agarwala, S., Sanders, T.A. and Ragsdale, C.W. (2001) Sonic Hedgehog control of size and shape in midbrain pattern formation. Science 291: 2147-2150. (PubMed)

Agarwala, S. and Ragsdale, C.W. (2002) A role for midbrain arcs in nucleogenesis. Development 129, 5779-5788. (PubMed)

Agarwala, S., Aglyamova, G. V., Marma, A.K., Fallon, J.F. and Ragsdale, C.W. (2005) Differential susceptibility of midbrain and spinal cord patterning to floor plate defects in the talpid mutant. Developmental Biology 288, 206-220. (PubMed)

(back to Faculty by name)

(back to Faculty by research interest)