Javier Cuadrado Ruiz

With an early and clear devotion to biology, I graduated as a biologist in 2024 from the Complutense University of Madrid. Deeply attracted to embryology and evolution—EvoDevo—I unexpectedly focused my final degree project on neurobiology. From ‘Analysis of developmental gene expression in the prethalamic region of Xenopus laevis,’ the title of the work, I was magnetised by the vast and intriguing universe of neuroscience.

For this reason, I decided to continue my studies in this direction, enrolling the following year in the Master's Degree in Neuroscience at the Complutense University of Madrid, where I completed my master's thesis, ‘Genoarchitectural study of the ontogenetic origin of the prethalamic region in Xenopus laevis and its relationship with the hypothalamic-diencephalic boundary: evolutionary implications’. Both projects were carried out in the Evolution and Development of the Vertebrate Nervous System research group under the supervision of Prof. Ruth Morona Arribas.

From an evolutionary perspective, my previous work and this thesis—supervised by Prof. Nerea Moreno García and Prof. Ruth Morona Arribas—study the actual and original subdivisions of the central nervous system, thus justifying the embryological approach, focusing especially on the prosencephalic region, and more specifically, on the prethalamus. Our objective is to try to understand what the nervous system essentially is and how it is organised, unravelling its embryological and evolutionary origins.

javicuad@ucm.es

Faculty of Biologican Sciences

Dept. of Cell Biology & Histology

12th floor, office 29b

Evolution and Development of the Central Nervous System of Vertebrates

Research Teams and Lines

Javier Cuadrado Ruiz