Everything we perceive, feel, think and how we act is a product of the architecture and function of our nervous system. Architecture and function of the nervous system is species-specific, a product of the gene expression program of each animal species. The genome contains the information about development and function, and also sets the windows and mechanisms of adaptation to changing environmental conditions characteristic of each animal species. In Developmental Genetics, we study the transformation rules of this information into phenotype, both during development and during function and adaptation in adult. In this course of genetic analysis and embryology we address the concepts and methods of functional genetics in different model animal organisms, and we study the early vertebrate embryogenesis.