Germ cells play a unique role in gamete production, heredity and evolution. Therefore, to understand the mechanisms that specify germ cells is a central challenge in developmental and evolutionary biology. Data from model organisms show that germ cells can be specified either by maternally inherited determinants (preformation) or by inductive signals (epigenesis). Here we review existing data o...

The epigenesis theory of development can be traced back to William Harvey (1651), who stated, in contrast to contemporary preformation views, that the embryo arises by “the addition of parts budding out from one another.” The word epigenesis was subsequently used by Conrad Waddington (Nature 150:563–565, 1942) to specify how genes might interact with their surroundings to produce a phenotype. T...

One of the key implications of functionalism is that minds can, in principle, be implemented with any physical substratum provided that the right functional relations are preserved. In this paper we present an architecture that implements neural epigenesis, reinforcement learning, and mental rehearsal, some of the functional building blocks that may enable us to build an artificial brain. Howev...

In this paper, we introduce the general architecture of a new electronic tissue called POEtic. This reconfigurable circuit is designed to ease the implementation of bio-inspired systems that bring cellular applications into play. It contains special features that allow a developer to realize systems that require evolution (Phylogenesis), development (Ontogenesis), and/or learning (Epigenesis). ...

B efore the early 1970s, scientific investigations of children from high-risk environments, as well as those with mental disorders, portrayed the developmental course of such individuals as deterministic, inevitably eventuating in maladaptive and psychopathological outcomes (1). As researchers discovered that not all high-risk children evinced the dire consequences that the existing theories of...

Báez-Saldaña A, Fetter-Pruneda I, Fuentes-Farías AL, Granados-Rojas L, Gutiérrez-Ospina G, MartínezMéndez R, Meléndez-Herrera E, Mendoza-Torreblanca J, Sandoval-Velasco M. Brain Plasticity, Signal Transduction and Epigenesis: a Missing Link Revealed. Annu Rev Biomed Sci 2009;11:T114-T122. It has been long thought that the brain reorganizes itself in response to environmental needs. Sensory expe...

This paper describes a new evolutionary mechanism developed specifically for cellular circuits. Called morphogenetic system, it is inspired by the mechanisms of gene expression and cell differentiation found in living organisms. It will be used as the phylogenetic (evolutionary) mechanism in the POEtic project. The POEtic project will deliver an electronic circuit, called the POEtic circuit, wi...