Figure 6.

The cell cycle is key to the self-organization of neural progenitors.

(a) Enhanced coupling stringency leads to amplification of G0/G0ˊ phases of cell cycle and subsequent- synchronized progression into interphase at a population level. The very same siganture, at an individual cell level, instructs spatial navigation, proliferation, and fate specification biases. As such, increased coupling stringency improves synchronicity of the cycling cells by decelerating the cell cycle and in parallel, delays differentiation. Upon differentiation, the same mechanism induces neuronal fate bias. Uncoupling instructs the opposite phenotype. (b) Morphogenes may be interpreted as the enhancers or the suppressors of coupling strength (schematized as springs) in order to synchronize/desynchronize the population and invoke the morphogenic signatures.