Fig. 2. Transcriptional changes during normal cortical excitatory neuron development.

a. Volcano plots showing differential gene expression in cortex across developmental stages: embryonic day 14 (E14) vs. postnatal day 0 (P0) (left), P0 vs. P13 (center), and P13 vs. P39 (right). Genes up-regulated in the older time point are highlighted in orange, while those down-regulated are shown in purple. Gray points represent genes that are not significantly differentially expressed. b. Heatmaps displaying variance-stabilized expression levels of genes (left) and transcription factors (right) specific to cortical excitatory neurons and neurotransmitter receptors. Each gene was re-scaled by Z-score normalization and ordered by hierarchical clustering. Orange indicates higher expression levels while purple denotes lower expression. c. Trends in averaged transcripts per million (TPMs) for gene families involved in excitatory cortical development and function.