Rainer W. Guillery and the genetic analysis of brain development

Abstract

Ray Guillery had broad research interests that spanned cellular neuroanatomy, but was perhaps best known for his investigation of the connectivity and function of the thalamus, especially the visual pathways. His work on the genetics of abnormal vision in albino mammals served as an early paradigm for genetic approaches for studying brain connectivity of complex species in general, and remains of major relevance today. This work, especially on the Siamese cat, illustrates the complex relationship between genotype and physiology of cerebral cortical circuits, and anticipated many of the issues underlying the imperfect relationship between genes, circuits, and behavior in mammalian species including human. This review also briefly summarizes studies from our own lab inspired by Ray Guillery's legacy that continues to explore the relationship between genes, structure, and behavior in human cerebral cortex.

Editorial: Introduction to the special issue in honor of Ray Guillery

“…Many of them are remembrances of Ray as mentor and role model, with reference to his lively discussion and debate over the issues that fascinated him. Three remembrances were contributed by his trainees: Anthony LaMantia () and Chris Walsh (), who were students during Ray's last period until 1985 in the US at the University of Chicago, and one of us (CAM) (Mason, ), who was his postdoctoral fellow during this time (see above). This latter article is the most unusual, because the reminiscences are blended with Ray's own story of how he discovered a path to albinism through his serendipitous finding of aberrations in the path from eye to brain in the Siamese cat.…”

Cortical layer with no known function

“…Ray and I had many detailed discussions about early thalamocortical development. Ray had shown that the sensory periphery and the central thalamocortical and corticothalamic pathways started their development separately and they only interacted at later stages (Mitrofanis & Guillery, ; see papers by Lamantia, and Walsh, in this issue). Therefore, the early stages of thalamocortical development take place autonomously, with the sensory periphery plugging into these immature circuits before beginning to transmit spontaneous and later sensory information.…”

Conversations with Ray Guillery on albinism: linking Siamese cat visual pathway connectivity to mouse retinal development

“…Chris Walsh (Walsh, ) states Ray's core questions on albinism: ‘…the Siamese cat presents two fundamental and fascinating problems in developmental biology. One relates to how RGCs are instructed to project to one side or another of the brain, and the role of pigment—which is only obviously present in the pigmented retina and not in the neural retina—in this process’.…”

“…The latter question was Ray's focus. The articles in this issue by Murray Sherman, Anthony LaMantia, Zoltan Molnár, Jeremy Taylor, and Chris Walsh also touch on Ray's pioneering approach to linking genes, circuits, and behavior (Sherman, ; LaMantia, ; Molnar, ; Taylor, ; Walsh, ). And for additional reviews on the albino, see Jon Kaas’ excellent narrative of Ray's discovery (Kaas, ), and comparisons of the albino rodent and human visual systems (Jeffery, ) and of the albino, achiasmatic, and pigmented visual systems (Prieur & Rebsam, ).…”