Delineating the Diversity of Spinal Interneurons in Locomotor Circuits

Overview

Journal J Neurosci

Specialty Neurology

Date 2017 Nov 10

PMID 29118212

Citations 51

Authors

Simon Gosgnach

Jay B Bikoff

Kimberly J Dougherty

Abdeljabbar El Manira

Guillermo M Lanuza

Ying Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Locomotion is common to all animals and is essential for survival. Neural circuits located in the spinal cord have been shown to be necessary and sufficient for the generation and control of the basic locomotor rhythm by activating muscles on either side of the body in a specific sequence. Activity in these neural circuits determines the speed, gait pattern, and direction of movement, so the specific locomotor pattern generated relies on the diversity of the neurons within spinal locomotor circuits. Here, we review findings demonstrating that developmental genetics can be used to identify populations of neurons that comprise these circuits and focus on recent work indicating that many of these populations can be further subdivided into distinct subtypes, with each likely to play complementary functions during locomotion. Finally, we discuss data describing the manner in which these populations interact with each other to produce efficient, task-dependent locomotion.

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