Dr Chedotal’s team (Paris Vision Institute) has already demonstrated its extraordinary abilities to study brain maturation with a tool that it masters and uses masterfully: the Light Sheet Microscope. Exploiting his proximity to hospitals and the links he has patiently developed over several years, Alain Chedotal was able to have access to human embryos (termination of pregnancy) between the 5th and 13th week post amenorrhea. The technique consists of fixing the specimens then making them transparent by dissolving the lipids and fats. This makes it possible to see in 3D all the structures, whether neuronal, vascular, or muscular and bony. This technique, which this team master’s well with the necessary tools in terms of biological markers and structural analysis and identification capabilities, is very suitable for dissecting maturation. The questions asked concern both the development of each component and how they progressively interact during maturation. We see, for example, how the irrigation and innervation of this or that structure takes place (the lacrimal glands, for example, essential to produce tears, the homeostasis of the cornea and vision). Or the development of the vessels which will irrigate the neck and head.
In this work, the authors use a wide range of immunological markers to identify the proteins involved in this development. Knowing that congenital disorders concern 3% of births, the creation of these atlases should make it possible, if not to cure these malformations, at least to identify them and possibly one day to intervene in utero to correct them. It is obvious that knowing when and by what proteins these malformations are born is essential to move forward. we hope that these advances – for once largely French – will one day have therapeutic applications but, in any case, they already have important cognitive scientific implications.
