Postembryonic Development and Regeneration of the Insect Nervous System

Abstract

Developmental changes in the anatomy of the nervous and muscular system of many insects have been described, however apart from the experimental studies of muscle development and regression little is known of the morphogenetic mechanisms in either muscle or nerve, and of these, the nervous system is the less understood. The postembryonic development of the insect nervous system is especially relevant to recent developments in neuroembryology and questions of the nature of neural specificity. Advances in knowledge of the ontogeny of the nervous system, which have been made almost exclusively with vertebrates, stress the capacity of differentiating neurons for forming complex and specific connections during early stages. This chapter also describes patterns of development in the nervous system, the source of neurons and glia, post embryonic development of the brain and sense organs of the head, cell death in the developing nervous system, and regeneration in the nervous system.