MA LAB Brain Evo-devo

Publications

Selected work on brain evolution, development and dysfunctions.

#: corresponding author. *: first author.

Science 2022

Molecular And Cellular Evolution Of The Primate Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Ma S*, Skarica M*, Li Q, Xu C, Risgaard RD, Tebbenkamp ATN, Mato-Blanco X, Kovner R, Krsnik Ž, de Martin X, Luria V, Martí-Pérez X, Liang D, Karger A, Schmidt DK, Gomez-Sanchez Z, Qi C, Gobeske KT, Pochareddy S, Debnath A, Hottman CJ, Spurrier J, Teo L, Boghdadi AG, Homman-Ludiye J, Ely JJ, Daadi EW, Mi D, Daadi M, Marín O, Hof PR, Rasin MR, Bourne J, Sherwood CC, Santpere G, Girgenti MJ, Strittmatter SM, Sousa AMM, Sestan N. Science. 2022 377(6614):eabo7257.

Science 2026

An opposing molecular gradient axis underlies primate cortical organization

Huang Z, Yang Q, Li S, Zhu X, Wang H, Lin J, Zhan Y, Wu Y, Wang Z, Majka P, Qu H, Atapour N, Yang T, Lin Y, Cui L, Yao YG, Liang Z, Liu Z, Li C, Wei W, Zhou Y, Ma S, Shen Z, Wei X, Xu X, Liu S, Li C, Poo M, Liu L, Rosa MGP, Sun Y, Hao S, Liu C. Science. 2026 Apr 16;392(6795):eaea2673. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aea2673

Nature 2026

Adaptive Evolution of Gene Regulatory Networks in Mammalian Neocortical Neurons

Li Z, Kaur N, Santpere G, Muchnik SK, Sindhu SK, Qi C, Shibata M, Clément O, Klarić TS, de Martin X, Luria V, Cho H, Li M, Shibata A, Tebbenkamp ATN, Ma S, Han W, Kim SK, Pochareddy S, Duy PQ, Xing X, Bao Y, Xu X, Gladwyn-Ng IE, Cullen HD, Paolino A, Fenlon LR, Kozulin P, Suárez R, Risgaard RD, Gulden FO, Karger A, Suzuki IK, Hirata T, Gobeske KT, Richards LJ, Sousa AMM, Heng JI, Sestan N. Nature. 2026 Mar 18. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10226-y

Cell 2026

Human-specific features of the cerebellum and ZP2-regulated synapse development

Kim SK, Cherskov A, Sindhwani A, Choi SH, Kim H, Li ML, Zhang M, Mato-Blanco X, Liu Y, Micali N, Young DM, Estacion M, Zhang Y, Ruiz-Jiménez JM, Nadkarni A, Luria V, Sindhu SK, Chatterjee I, Shibata A, Liang D, Cho H, Park S, Spajic A, Kovner R, Glavan M, Chen RJ, Risgaard RD, Li X, Pochareddy S, Karger A, Huttner A, Morozov YM, Daadi EW, Colantuoni C, Gobeske KT, Ely JJ, Hof PR, Daadi MM, Sherwood CC, Duque A, Ma S, Sousa AMM, Waxman SG, Rakic P, Santpere G, Sanders SJ, Sestan N. Human-specific features of the cerebellum and ZP2-regulated synapse development. Cell. 2026 Mar 11:S0092-8674(26)00221-7. PMID: 40964325

Nature 2025

Specification of claustro-amygdalar and palaeocortical neurons and circuits

Kaur N, Kovner R, Gulden FO, Pletikos M, Andrijevic D, Zhu T, Silbereis J, Shibata M, Shibata A, Liu Y, Ma S, Salla N, de Martin X, Klarić TS, Burke M, Franjic D, Cho H, Yuen M, Chatterjee I, Soric P, Esakkimuthu D, Moser M, Santpere G, Mineur YS, Pattabiraman K, Picciotto MR, Huang H, Sestan N. Nature. 2025 Feb;638(8050):469-478. PMID: 39814878

Science 2024

Single-cell genomics and regulatory networks for 388 human brains

Emani PS, Liu JJ, Clarke D, Jensen M, Warrell J, Gupta C, Meng R, Lee CY, Xu S, Dursun C, Lou S, Chen Y, Chu Z, Galeev T, Hwang A, Li Y, Ni P, Zhou X; PsychENCODE Consortium‡; Bakken TE, Bendl J, Bicks L, Chatterjee T, Cheng L, Cheng Y, Dai Y, Duan Z, Flaherty M, Fullard JF, Gancz M, Garrido-Martín D, Gaynor-Gillett S, Grundman J, Hawken N, Henry E, Hoffman GE, Huang A, Jiang Y, Jin T, Jorstad NL, Kawaguchi R, Khullar S, Liu J, Liu J, Liu S, Ma S, Margolis M, Mazariegos S, Moore J, Moran JR, Nguyen E, Phalke N, Pjanic M, Pratt H, Quintero D, Rajagopalan AS, Riesenmy TR, Shedd N, Shi M, Spector M, Terwilliger R, Travaglini KJ, Wamsley B, Wang G, Xia Y, Xiao S, Yang AC, Zheng S, Gandal MJ, Lee D, Lein ES, Roussos P, Sestan N, Weng Z, White KP, Won H, Girgenti MJ, Zhang J, Wang D, Geschwind D, Gerstein M; PsychENCODE Consortium. Science. 2024 May 24;384(6698):eadi5199.

Nature 2022

Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body

Andrijevic D, Vrselja Z, Lysyy T, Zhang S, Skarica M, Spajic A, Dellal D, Thorn SL, Duckrow RB, Ma S, Duy PQ, Isiktas AU, Liang D, Li M, Kim SK, Daniele SG, Banu K, Perincheri S, Menon MC, Huttner A, Sheth KN, Gobeske KT, Tietjen GT, Zaveri HP, Latham SR, Sinusas AJ, Sestan N. Nature. 2022. 608(7922):405-412.

Nat Neurosci 2022

Impaired neurogenesis alters brain biomechanics in a neuroprogenitor-based genetic subtype of congenital hydrocephalus

Duy PQ, Weise SC, Marini C, Li XJ, Liang D, Dahl PJ, Ma S, Spajic A, Dong W, Juusola J, Kiziltug E, Kundishora AJ, Koundal S, Pedram MZ, Torres-Fernández LA, Händler K, De Domenico E, Becker M, Ulas T, Juranek SA, Cuevas E, Hao LT, Jux B, Sousa AMM, Liu F, Kim SK, Li M, Yang Y, Takeo Y, Duque A, Nelson-Williams C, Ha Y, Selvaganesan K, Robert SM, Singh AK, Allington G, Furey CG, Timberlake AT, Reeves BC, Smith H, Dunbar A, DeSpenza T Jr, Goto J, Marlier A, Moreno-De-Luca A, Yu X, Butler WE, Carter BS, Lake EMR, Constable RT, Rakic P, Lin H, Deniz E, Benveniste H, Malvankar NS, Estrada-Veras JI, Walsh CA, Alper SL, Schultze JL, Paeschke K, Doetzlhofer A, Wulczyn FG, Jin SC, Lifton RP, Sestan N, Kolanus W, Kahle KT. Nat Neurosci. 2022. 25(4):458-473.

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