Descending Systems Direct Development of Key Spinal Motor Circuits

Spinal Motor Circuits Merging Development and Function

neuronal populations that make up the lamprey CPG, like the locomotor circuits in higher vertebrates, are composed of three main classes of neurons: excitatory Pharmacology and Physiology interneurons that receive reticulospinal inputs for gener-University of Chicago ating the rhythmic output and that then distribute activity Chicago, Illinois 60637 to all neurons on the same side of the body; ...

Postnatal development of a segmental switch enables corticospinal tract transmission to spinal forelimb motor circuits.

Development of skilled movements and the corticospinal tract (CST) begin prenatally and continue postnatally. Because the CST is required for skilled movements in maturity, it is accepted that motor skills cannot occur until the CST develops a mature organization. We recently showed that the CST plays an essential role in postnatal development of interneurons comprising the spinal circuits it e...

Assembly and function of spinal circuits for motor control.

Control of movement is a fundamental and complex task of the vertebrate nervous system, which relies on communication between circuits distributed throughout the brain and spinal cord. Many of the networks essential for the execution of basic locomotor behaviors are composed of discrete neuronal populations residing within the spinal cord. The organization and connectivity of these circuits is ...

Descending motor pathways and the spinal motor system: limbic and non-limbic components.

Experience-Dependent Development of Spinal Motor Neurons

Locomotor activity in many species undergoes pronounced alterations in early postnatal life, and environmental cues may be responsible for modifying this process. To determine how these events are reflected in the nervous system, we studied rats reared under two different conditions-the presence or absence of gravity-in which the performance of motor operations differed. We found a significant ...