This collection of articles focuses on larval nervous systems, either specific neurons or entire nervous systems — on how they are constructed, how natural selection acts on them, and how they relate to the adult nervous system in the same species. Many animals go through different larval stages, and each stage requires adaptations to interact with the specific environment. During development, the larval nervous system likely experiences strong selection pressures since it controls many physiological and behavioral processes. These selection pressures can vary at different life history stages if there are differences in factors such as habitat, predation avoidance, and diet. There is evidence for this in the relationship of the larval nervous system to the adult nervous system, which can vary widely between species. In some species, the larval nervous system largely becomes the adult nervous system, while in other species, the larval nervous system degenerates entirely and is replaced with an adult nervous system that is vastly different in morphology and function. Comparative analyses in different species that use these opposing solutions enable the exploration of the evolutionary relationships of their nervous systems.

Understanding the specific adaptations of larval nervous systems requires an understanding of basic developmental processes such as cell migration, proliferation, and differentiation. In several species, the larval stages are still understudied and many questions about the development, physiology, and morphology of their nervous systems remain unanswered. Furthermore, comparisons of larval nervous systems among different animal species can be highly useful for reconstructing how the nervous systems evolved under similar or different selection pressures. The advancement of our understanding of larval nervous systems greatly benefits from newly available methods, such as single-cell transcriptomic analyses and CRISPR/Cas9 gene manipulations, but also from the increasing possibilities to raise non-model species in the lab for better or initial characterization.

This collection invites studies analyzing individual neurons or the entire nervous system of animals during the larval stages of their life. We plan to highlight a variety of species, including larvae that generate a largely adult nervous system as well as animals in which the larval nervous system will be replaced with new adult structures, since this emphasizes diverse solutions to similar problems in different animal species. Examples of research areas that could contribute to this collection include:

• Comparative phylogenetic analyses of larval neurons/ nervous systems

• Studies of the transition from larval to adult nervous system (retained vs. remodeled nervous systems)

• Gene expression analyses of larval nervous systems

• Functional analyses of developing neurons

• Analyses of neuronal migratory behavior

• Larval behavior analyses based on neuronal manipulation

• Morphological or physiological analyses of larval neurons/ nervous system

• Comparisons of larval nervous systems between non-model and model organisms

• Analyses of non-model organism larval nervous system

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Frontiers in Neuroscience

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