Coordinated bursts of leg motoneuron activity were evoked in locusts with deefferented legs by tactile stimulation of sites that evoke grooming behavior. This suggests that insect thoracic ganglia contain central pattern generators for directed leg movements. Motoneuron recordings were made from metathoracic and mesothoracic nerves, after eliminating all leg motor innervation, as well as all in...

A vertebrate motoneuron receives an enormous amount of synaptic activity from descending pathways, from spinal cord interneurons and directly from mechanoreceptor afferents. The intrinsic characteristics of the motoneuron will determine how its output spike train will encode the activities of all its inputs. Therefore, the essence of the intrinsic motoneuron characteristics should be well studi...

We examined the features of spontaneous deletions of bursts of motoneuron activity that can occur within otherwise rhythmic alternating flexor and extensor activity during fictive locomotion and scratch in adult decerebrate cats. Deletions of activity were observed both in hindlimb flexor and extensor motoneuron pools during brainstem-stimulation evoked fictive locomotion but only in extensors ...

Several protocols direct human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) toward differentiation into functional motoneurons, but the efficiency of motoneuron generation varies based on the human ESC line used. We aimed to develop a novel protocol to increase the formation of motoneurons from human ESCs. In this study, we tested a nuclear histone deacetylase protein, Sirt1, to promote neural precursor cell (...

Motoneuron survival in the embryonic spinal cord is influenced by the presence or absence of the developing limb bud. We have recently begun a reexamination of the relationship between limb absence and motoneuron survival in a nonsurgical limb deletion model, the limbless mutant chick embryo. As in surgically limb-deleted normal embryos, only 10% of the motoneurons that are initially produced i...

Introduction: Neurotrophins belong to growth factor family and their function is based on their receptors. They bind two types of receptors: p75 and tyrosine kinase. The motoneuron survival or death depends upon the neurotrophic factors. Recent studies have demonstrated that axotomy in peripheral nerve induces apoptosis of motoneuron. Deprenyl or Selegiline is known as a drug with neuroprote...

A conditioned patellar tendon reflex paradigm was used to study the contributions of crossed spinal and supraspinal inputs to the output of the alpha motoneuron pool in children with and without developmental coordination disorders. The basic patellar tendon reflex response was exaggerated in children with developmental coordination disorders. Crossed spinal and supraspinal influences on the ex...

the purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of the modified ashworth scale (mas) by using both the conventional (hmax/mmax ratio) and the new indicators (hslp/mslp) of motoneuron excitability. this research was a correlational study on twenty post-stroke patients. main outcome measures were the mas and electrophysiologic assessments. the latter was performed using both conventiona...

The electrical properties of cat medial gastrocnemius (MG) spinal motoneurons were studied 14-21 d following injection of type A botulinum toxin (BTX) into the MG muscle. Treated MG muscles were atrophic, displayed pronounced fibrillation activity, and were markedly but not completely paralyzed. MG motoneuron electrical properties from animals with the highest MG muscle-twitch forces (greater t...