Monoamines such as serotonin, dopamine, and tyramine regulate physiological and behavioral processes in bilaterian animals, but the evolutionary origi…

New research on the sea squirt Ciona intestinalis challenges the view that animals living fixed in place have simple behaviors and limited responses to their environment.

New 3D reconstructions of a key sensory organ in ctenophores reveal an unexpected structural and functional complexity. The findings suggest that an elementary brain may have already appeared in our m...

Animals with lifelong growth modulate cell proliferation in response to nutrient availability, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. This study shows that starvation induces a revers...

Abstract. Shared fusions between ancestral chromosomal linkage groups have previously been used to support phylogenetic groupings, notably sponges with cni

Via genetic ablation of neurons, Mazloumi Gavgani et al. show that the nervous system is essential for defining axial polarity during whole-body regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

Nature Communications - Here, the authors investigate chromatin-based gene regulation in the closest relative of animal, choanoflagellates. They uncover a putative dual role for the histone...

Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...

Larvae of jellyfish and corals have specialized sensory cells with shared features potentially linked to settlement regulation.

Shared fusions between ancestral chromosomal linkage groups have previously been used to support phylogenetic groupings, notably sponges with cnidarians and bilaterians to the exclusion of ctenophores...

The physical organization of the genome in non-bilaterian animals and their closest unicellular relatives is characterized; comparative analysis shows chromatin looping is a conserved feature of ...

Despite the growing abundance of sequenced animal genomes, we only have detailed knowledge of regulatory organization for a handful of lineages, particularly flies and vertebrates. These two groups of...