From grasshopper to Drosophila: a common plan for neuronal development

Abstract
Little is known about the mechanisms that neuronal specificity during development. Whereas the grasshopper embryo was an ideal system for a cellular analysis of neuronal development, the Drosophila embryo has obvious attributes for a molecular genetic analysis. The early Drosophila embryo is a miniature replica of the grasshopper embryo in terms of its identified neurons, their growth cones and their selective fasciculation choices, thus opening the way for a combined cellular and molecular genetic analysis of cell recognition during neuronal development in Drosophila.