[Verse 1]
Cajal looked down his scope and gave it a name,
growth cone — a hand feeling blind through the frame.
Filopodia fingers, five little spies,
tasting the air where the chemistry lies.
No eyes, no compass, just molecules to trust,
every whisper of protein turns "go" into "must."
[Chorus]
Growth cone, growth cone, пальцы ищут путь,
Filopodia feeling — не забудь, не забудь.
Netrin зовёт ближе, Slit кричит — уйди,
Chemistry writes the roadmap deep inside.
Growth cone, growth cone, рука в темноте,
Строит план пути in your cells, in your DNA.
[Verse 2]
Down at the midline, netrin lays the lure,
pulling the axon closer, promising it's pure.
Cross the line once, something flips the switch —
Robo wakes up, turns attraction to an itch.
Slit says "enough now, don't you double back,"
repulsion keeps the highway running on one track.
[Chorus]
Growth cone, growth cone, пальцы ищут путь,
Filopodia feeling — не забудь, не забудь.
Netrin зовёт ближе, Slit кричит — уйди,
Chemistry writes the roadmap deep inside.
Growth cone, growth cone, рука в темноте,
Строит план пути in your cells, in your DNA.
[Verse 3]
Semaphorins post the warning, ephrins guard the gate,
mostly pushing axons, telling them to wait.
Sperry flipped a frog's eye, stitched it in reverse,
the wiring grew back perfect — that's the twist, the curse.
A fly buzzed overhead, the tongue shot up instead,
the frog saw the whole pond upside down in its head.
Это правда, friends — chemoaffinity's the key:
each axon finds its partner like it always used to see.
[Bridge]
Ephrin runs in gradients, low to high, a slope,
retina maps the tectum, point by point, in scope.
Front of eye to back of brain, order in the blur,
guidance draws the outline — rough, but it occurs.
Then activity comes sculpting, firing tunes the thread,
guidance builds the skeleton, experience fills the rest.
[Chorus]
Growth cone, growth cone, пальцы ищут путь,
Filopodia feeling — не забудь, не забудь.
Netrin зовёт ближе, Slit кричит — уйди,
Chemistry writes the roadmap deep inside.
Growth cone, growth cone, рука в темноте,
Строит план пути in your cells, in your DNA.
[Verse 4]
Actin treadmills forward, microtubules push the frame,
the cone reads every signal like it's calling out a name.
cAMP tips the balance, turns a warning into "yes,"
calcium waves decide which way the fingers will progress.
Lose the path in injury, axons stall and fray,
coax the growth cone gently, and it still might find its way —
science chasing silence down the long, uncharted dark,
every scar a question, every spark a start.
[Outro]
Растущий конус, помни — chemistry's the guide,
Netrin, Slit, semaphorin, ephrin side by side.
Rough map first, fine-tuned later, that's the neuron way,
Growth cone, growth cone — ищет путь each and every day.