Neurulation in Urodeles: The Notoplate


At the outset of neurulation, a central, posterior region of the neural plate undergoes dramatic elongation via convergent extension. Antone Jacobson and his colleagues named this region the "notoplate".


Anterior-posterior elongation of the entire neuraxis accompanies the closure of the dorsal surface of the neural tube in amphibians. Jacobson and colleagues have suggested that this may contribute to the closure of the neural tube via a process engineers call "Poisson buckling".