Development and function of nervous systems of sea urchin larvae

Abstract

Sea urchins have been valuable tools in experimental biology for a long time. While they’ve made significant contributions to fields like developmental and cell biology, their role in neuroscience has been somewhat neglected. For years, there has been a lack of molecular information and a limited number of researchers interested in studying sea urchin neurobiology. As a result, there have been only sporadic reports on the morphology of sea urchin nervous systems from individual labs, setting neurobiology apart from mainstream sea urchin research. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the development of molecular tools and the North American purple sea urchin genome project spurred an increase in neurobiological research within the sea urchin community. In recent years, this field has gained attention from an EvoDevo perspective as well. In this review, we focus on sea urchin larval nervous systems, presenting previously published papers on their development and function. We begin by briefly introducing sea urchins, which may not be familiar to this journal’s audience, and summarizing their evolutionary lineage, development, and research history. Then, we describe sea urchin larval nervous systems and detail their respective development processes. Additionally, we provide an overview of the information we’ve uncovered about their functionality. Finally, we discuss how insights from sea urchin larval neurobiology can be further developed from an evolutionary standpoint.